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Evaluation & the Health Professions
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The Cost of Quality Assurance in Medicine

Mark S. Thompson

R. Heather Palmer

Janet K. Rothrock

Rose Strain

Laura H. Brachman

Elizabeth A. Wright

Harvard School of Public Health

Cost analysis has beenfrequently neglected in program evaluations but is currently of high relevance in policy decisions on quality assurance in medicine. The Ambulatory Care Medical Audit Demonstration (A CMAD) Project implemented and evaluated a program of medical record-based quality assurance in eleven sites for nine medical topics. Total direct costs for the project were $1.22 million over five years; indirect costs, $694,000. A computerized data system enabled disaggregation of the cost data by person, timing, type of work, project phase, health topic, health center, and research or operational nature. Of the costs incurred, 79% were for operational reasons, with 21% incurred for research reasons. Costs per audited case were 31% higher in hospitals than in neighborhood health centers. Audit topics of low per-case costs tended to have automated case findings, straightforward and limited abstracting, little need to examine multiple visits, anda low proportion ofcase-foundpatients ineligible for audit.

Evaluation & the Health Professions, Vol. 6, No. 3, 283-297 (1983)
DOI: 10.1177/016327878300600303
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