Can quality care be planned?

Abstract

Planning quality care can begin with planning a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Given that health-care services must compete for scarce resources, it is important that RCTs collect data to support an economic evaluation when the RCT ends. Economic data can be collected after an RCT ends; however, translating the clinical findings into clinical practice and health-care policy may be less efficient and less effective. Three types of data--economic, behavioral, and biological outcomes--should be collected during an RCT to conduct an economic evaluation at the end of an RCT. Economic outcomes represent the actual resources consumed by a health service, i.e., economic costs; behavioral outcomes include measures of longevity and health-related quality of life; and biological outcomes measure physiological state, e.g., retinopathy level.