Assignment - Benchmarking

Select a disease area, where a decision analysis of preferred course of action is available. You can base your selection by searching biomedical literature (i.e., pubmed), use own knowledge, on consult with an expert.   Suppose you would like to benchmark three clinicians who are practicing in this area.  Using the analysis found, carry out the following activities:

1. Design forms/questionnaire that you would use to collect information about (1) patient's severity of illness (based the measures published in the literature) and (2) patient outcomes (use a standardized instrument).

2. Complete the form for 10 hypothetical patients per provider (do not interview actual patients, but create hypothetical reasonable answers).  This gives at least 30 completed forms with data.

3. Analyze the data you have generated and create a report from it.  Use one of benchmarking methods described in the lecture, compare performance of providers for which you collected the hypothetical data. Make sure you justify selection of the method you used. Make sure the method is correctly applied. Make sure benchmarking results are adjusted based on severity of cases for which you completed the forms. If not standardized method for calculating severity exists, construct one as described in the literature.

4. Prepare for the presentation of your problem, data, and results using the procedures outlined in the reading. Remember to include complete created benchmarking models in your presentation. Make sure to present conclusions from your analysis.