CRE - 560 Health Care Outcomes

Improving patient, community and populations health outcomes is the common overarching goal for all clinicians, researchers, health care administrators, leaders and health care systems. Understanding of what health outcomes are, why we need to study and evaluate them and what role they can play in improving our knowledge is pivotal toward potentially leveraging this knowledge to improve health outcomes at all levels. This is especially important for all those planning to undertake a future career involving patient care and clinical research. This insight is also important for clinicians in provision of patient care, shared decision making, communication and tracking of the outcomes of any health intervention. It forms the basis of evidence-based medicine, value-based care, patient safety, quality improvement, accountability and making knowledgeable market decisions and marketing in health care. Health outcomes assessments allow (a) patients to better understand their health and take an active part in their own medical care decisions, (b) the clinicians in gauging their patients’ health status, develop patient centered care management strategies and shared decision making, (c) health care systems to streamline their efforts to effectively and efficiently meet the health care demands of the patients and the larger community and lastly, (d) health care policy and resource allocation at the macro level. Put another way, health outcomes not only add to our medical knowledge base but also support quality improvement, accountability, making knowledgeable market decisions and marketing. Health outcomes are determined by varied factors. Students versed in this subject will understand and support clinical research and initiatives that impact daily patient care and may extend to applications in health disparities, health resource allocation and health policy. The objectives of this course are to: (1) Discuss why measurement of health outcomes in important in health care settings. (2) Describe various health outcomes routinely evaluated in medical literature. (3) Conceptualize measurement properties of tools used to evaluate health outcomes. (4) Critically appraise select Health outcomes papers from medical Journals. Offered: spring. Retake Counts for Credit: No. Pass/No Pass Grading Allowed: No. Credit(s): 4