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<p><strong>You Are Here:</strong> <span class="crumb_link"><a href="/" class="crumb_link">AHRQ Archive Home</a> &gt; <a href="/research/resarch.htm" class="crumb_link"><em>Research Activities</em> Archive</a> &gt; <a href="." class="crumb_link">October 1997</a>
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<td><h1><a name="h1" id="h1"></a> Research Briefs </h1>
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<td><div id="centerContent"><div class="headnote">
<p>This information is for reference purposes only. It was current when produced and may now be outdated. Archive material is no longer maintained, and some links may not work. Persons with disabilities having difficulty accessing this information should contact us at: <a href="https://info.ahrq.gov/">https://info.ahrq.gov</a>. Let us know the nature of the problem, the Web address of what you want, and your contact information. </p>
<p>Please go to <a href="https://www.ahrq.gov/">www.ahrq.gov</a> for current information.</p></div>
<a name="head1"></a>
<a name="head2"></a><p><strong>Franks, P., Clancy, C.M., and Nutting, P.A. (1997). "Defining primary
care: Empirical
analysis of the national ambulatory medical care survey."<em> Medical Care</em> 35(7), pp.
655-668.</strong></p>
<p>In this paper, Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D., Acting Director of the Agency for Health Care Policy
and Research's Center for Primary Care Research, and her colleagues identified 10 elements of
primary care to determine whether the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) definition of primary
care could be operationalized. These elements addressed comprehensiveness, coordination,
continuity, and accessibility of care. They used data from the 1985 to 1991 National Ambulatory
Medical Care Surveys to examine the activities of over 6,000 physicians in 29 physician specialty
groups, according to IOM's definition of primary care. They found that, in addition to the
well-defined primary care specialties, office-based emergency medicine specialists, general
surgeons, and nephrologists had high primary care scores. Dr. Clancy and her colleagues call for
more data to explicitly capture the functions of primary care in the health care system. Minor
modifications to existing national surveys would go a long way to accomplishing this goal.</p>
<p>Reprints (AHCPR Publication No. 97-R090) are available from the <a
href="https://www.ahrq.gov/research/publications/order/order-research-activities.html">AHCPR Publications
Clearinghouse</a>.</p>
<a name="head3"></a><p><strong>Fryback, D.G., and Lawrence, W.F. (1997, July). "Dollars may not buy as
many QALYs as
we think: A problem with defining quality-of-life adjustments." (AHCPR grant HS06491).
<em>Medical Decision Making</em> 17, pp. 276-284.</strong></p><p>
Cost-utility analysis (CUA) is important because of its ability to make broad comparisons of the
dollars per quality-adjusted life year ($/QALY) ratio across a range of interventions for different
medical conditions and in differing types of people. CUA allows us to infer whether the
intervention at hand is a particularly expensive or an inexpensive way to "produce" health. The Q
scale that is used to compute QALYs ranges from 0 (death) to 1 (excellent health). But many
CUAs use the upper anchor of the scale to denote only the absence of the particular condition
under investigation and weight the disease state proportional to this endpoint. These are called q
scales. This approach ignores the fact that the average patient is still subject to chronic and acute
conditions that coexist with the condition being analyzed. The absence of a particular condition is
not in general the same as excellent health, note these authors. CUAs based on q scales yield
qALYs. Incremental $/qALY ratios are generally lower than $/QALY ratios. Other CUAs
correctly weight disease states using the Q scale but erroneously assign a quality weight of 1 to
the absence of disease in the CUA computations. The authors suggest that analysts doing CUAs
without access to primary data from treated patients use average age-specific, health-related
quality-of-life weights from population-based studies to represent the absence of a particular
disease. </p>
<a name="head4"></a><p><strong>Lee, D., and Lopez, L. (1997, June). An invitational workshop on
collaboration between
quality improvement organizations and business coalitions. (AHCPR grant HS09360).
<em>Journal on Quality Improvement</em> 23(6), pp. 334-341.</strong></p><p>
This paper summarizes a workshop, supported by the Agency for Health Care Policy and
Research, of federally designated peer review/quality improvement organizations and business
coalitions from nine States. The objectives of the workshop were to encourage public- and
private-sector organizations to collaborate on community-based quality improvement projects;
involve and encourage other groups&#8212;such as specialty societies, health associations,
consumer
groups, and Federal agencies&#8212;to seek other major stakeholders in their communities to
expand on
these activities; advance the use of valid and reliable performance measures; highlight current
public- and private-sector quality initiatives; and develop a framework to help promote
community-based quality improvement that cuts across populations and involves a multitude of
community health partners. </p>
<a name="head5"></a><p><strong>Stansfield, S.A., Roberts, R., and Foot, S.P. (1997). "Assessing the
validity of the SF-36
general health survey." (AHCPR grant HS06516). <em>Quality of Life Research</em> 6, pp.
217-224,
1997.</strong> </p><p>
The researchers assessed the validity of the SF-36 General Health Survey against the Social
Maladjustment Schedule (SMS) and two questionnaire measures, the Social Problem
Questionnaire and the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), in a random subsample of 206 men and
women from a longitudinal survey of health and disease among 10,308 London-based civil
servants. They found that social functioning on the SF-36 correlated significantly with social
contacts, total satisfaction, and total management scores on the SMS and with social isolation and
emotional reactions on the NHP. General mental health on the SF-36 was associated with
marriage, social contacts, leisure scores, total satisfaction, and total management scores on the
SMS and with emotional reactions, energy level, and social isolation on the NHP. Conversely,
physical functioning and physical role limitations were generally not associated with the SMS but
were associated with physical abilities and pain on the NHP. This analysis provides supportive
evidence for the validity of several of the SF-36 subscales, particularly those concerned with
social and psychological functioning. </p>
<a name="head6"></a><p><strong>Stineman, M.G. (1997). "Measuring casemix, severity, and complexity in
geriatric patients
undergoing rehabilitation." (AHCPR grant HS07595). <em>Medical Care</em> 35(6), pp.
JS90-JS105.</strong></p><p>
Geriatric rehabilitation is intended to maintain or restore function, maximize life satisfaction,
enhance psychologic well-being, and maintain the social status of older persons. This article
presents a theoretical basis for casemix measurement in medical rehabilitation, contrasts structure
of the functional independent measure-function-related groups (FIM-FRGs) intended for casemix
measurement to the diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) and resource utilization groups (RUG) III
systems designed for acute and long-term care settings. It also focuses on special issues of
relevance to the rehabilitation of older persons. </p>
<p>The author points out that not all rehabilitation patients require the intensive 3 hours of daily
therapy traditionally provided by rehabilitation hospitals and inpatient units. Medical rehabilitation
is challenged to identify ways of ensuring equitable access to the most cost-effective level of care
appropriate to each patient. </p>
<a name="head7"></a><p><strong>Stineman, M.G., Jette, A., Fiedler, R., and Granger, C. (1997, June).
"Impairment-specific
dimensions within the functional independence measure." (AHCPR grant HS07595).
<em>Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation</em> 78, pp. 636-643.</strong></p>
<p>In this paper, the authors analyzed the impairment-specific dimensions within the Functional
Independence Measure (FIM) to seek more refined dimensions beyond the motor and cognitive
dimensions of the FIM. They used factor analysis within 20 categories of impairment to test
whether FIM items can be grouped according to functional areas of the body, using data from the
Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation on nearly 94,000 patients discharged in 1992
from 252 free-standing rehabilitation hospitals and units. They found that in 18 of 20 impairment
categories, factor analyses of patients' admission FIM scores showed impairment-specific FIM
dimensions. The impairment-specific dimensions were always nested within the motor-FIM
subscale. The subscales appear to cluster FIM items by the area of the body involved,
neurological level, or relative energy consumption. The researchers conclude that the FIM can be
viewed as a multilayered, multidimensional measure of human function. The impairment-specific
dimensions provide insight about the causal linkage between the impairment and resulting patterns
of disability. </p>
<p class="size2"><a href=".">Return to Contents</a></p>
<p class="size2"><em>Current as of October 1997</em></p>
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<p class="size2"><strong>Internet Citation:</strong></p>
<p class="size2"><em>Research Activities</em> newsletter. October 1997, No. 209. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD. https://www.ahrq.gov/research/oct97/</p>
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