Spine Colorado - Clinical Outcome Data

Click here (only if you have a password) to access this year's clinical outcome report card. To view these report cards, you must have a password. A pop up window will appear and where you need to enter the password. Simply start typing, the password will not work if you first mouse click into the pop up window.

What is Quality of Care?
There is a lot of confusion about the word "quality." In healthcare, everyone claims to have high quality, but few providers offer data to prove it.

For example, it is amusing to those outside of the healthcare industry that every health care provider claims to provide high quality. But as any expert in quality management will argue, if you are not measuring your performance, you have no business whatsover claiming you have quality.

Experts in quality management define high quality as "the quality of being superior." In automobiles, quality manufacturing means that the distance between a fender and a hood is the same distance from car to car, or that the paint is free of defects in every car.

Unfortunately, in healthcare, there can be a lot of variation. And that can be especially true in the field of back care. A person with back pain can visit several different doctors and get several different diagnoses and treatments.

The first step toward improving quality is to collect data that documents patient severity at the time of first appointment. Then after care, functional status of the patient should be measured, along with patient satisfaction. SpineColorado is one of the few physician groups in the state of Colorado doing these clinical outcome studies for the purpose of continually improving the quality of care provided to patients.

Clinical outcome systems are the study of a patients recovery from the time they go to the doctor to when they return to work or activity. The outcome data allows the doctors to monitor each patient's progress and compare it to other patients with the same problem. Such tracking systems assure the doctor that the highest quality treatment was delivered. Clinical outcome systems provide quantifiable data based on the patients experiences, feelings and treatment.

The last misconception about quality is that "quality" is like a destination. In reality, quality is a journey where you never arrive. You are continually striving to improve.

It is our hope that by continually measuring ourselves, we will continue to improve the quality of care provided to patients, as well as remain sensitive to patient satisfaction.

How Tracking Treatment Information Improves Healthcare
By collecting information on how patients do following treatment, doctors and therapists can customize future care protocols based on what worked best in the past. The field of health care is always changing, and doctors are always trying to find the best possible way to treat a health care problem. Asking patients what worked best is the only way doctors can improve the way they care for problems in the future.

As a patient of SpineColorado, we may ask you how you are doing and what you thought of our service to you. Your answers are important in helping us to continually improve. We thank you in advance for your time and feedback.

Need more information on back and neck pain?
Click here to view resource books on spine problems, what causes back pain, what causes neck pain and when to see the doctor.