Skip to main content

Search from vocabulary

Content language

Concept information

Preferred term

health outcomes assessment  

Definition

  • Have population-wide death rates and disability levels attributable to disease X declined over the past decade? In a randomized clinical trial comparing drug Y with standard therapy, is there a clinically important difference in patient survival or in patient-reported outcomes (PRO) such as symptom bother? In an economic evaluation of screening for disease Z annually rather than semi-annually, what are the estimated differences in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per dollar spent? If a patient, working closely with her physician, is considering two therapies with similar projected survival benefits, how might she determine which provides the better health-related quality of life (HRQOL)? These quite diverse queries share a central common feature: They involve health outcomes assessment. Health outcomes assessment (HOA) is a systematic and frequently multistep analytical process that may entail (1) identifying the health-related issue or problem to be investigated and the relevant audiences for the assessment (which may or may not be an identified decision maker); (2) selecting health outcome measures applicable to the problem at hand; (3) establishing an appropriate study design and collecting and analyzing the health outcomes data, often in conjunction with additional data deemed necessary for the particular assessment being done (e.g., one may want to draw inferences about the potential determinants of health outcomes); and (4) translating findings from (3) into information useful to the audiences identified in (1). [Source: Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making; Health Outcomes Assessment]

Belongs to group

URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/health_outcomes_assessment

Download this concept: