Check What You Know

What is the idea?

Advanced learners like you, often need different ways of understanding a topic. Reading is just one way of understanding. Another way is through writing. When you write you not only recall what you have written but also may need to make inferences about what you have read. The enclosed quiz is designed to get you to think more about the concepts taught in this session.

1. List the threats to validity of a study in which control charts are used to measure on-going changes in a program?

2. Critically evaluate the purpose of measuring patient's satisfaction and health status. Obviously there is a great deal of difference between health status measures (e.g., how are you?) and satisfaction surveys (e.g., do you like us?). At the same time, there is some similarity. Both are based on consumer self reports. Both produce numerical degrees of consumer's responses. Both are used by clinicians and administrators to make a case about the quality of their services. The question I have is which do you prefer and why? In responding keep in mind if health status can be affected by patients' life style? For example, a patient who wants to play golf may go ahead with a Hip Fracture surgery. Similarly, a patient who wants to be able to move about in his apartment may do the same. Given that both recover some mobility as a consequence of their surgery, how would their responses to the health status questions differ in 6 months post surgery. If these responses will differ, what does this tell us about the usefulness of using health status surveys to measure quality of clinical services. Please indicate what is your preferred method of measuring patient outcomes (patient satisfaction or patient's health status) and why. Give examples of how each measure could be misleading as a measure of quality of services.

Contact Information

2. What is your first name?

3. What is your last name?

4. What is your email address?

Submit this form. If you are having difficulty submitting the form, send it by facsimile to 703 993 1953. Alternatively mail the form to Farrokh Alemi, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, Virginia 22030-4444. If you receive an error message, use the back button to return to this page.

This page is part of the course on Quality/Process Improvement. It was last revised on 05/03/2015 by Farrokh Alemi, Ph.D.