Using Performance Measures to Promote Evidence-Based Care: A Bayesian Approach

The processes that clinicians use to deliver care to their patients often diverge from the evidence-based procedures recommended in clinical guidelines. Persuading clinicians to use evidence-based practices is vital, however, and many policymakers, insurance payers, and clinical leaders see performance measurement as an essential first step to accomplishing this. In performance measurement, researchers use precise measures to gather, analyze, and report data on the performance of physicians, hospitals, and medical groups. But despite the extraordinary range of performance measures that have been developed, tested, and used over the past two decades, the quality of care provided in the U.S. continues to lag (World Health Organization 2013).