Funnel plots of patient-reported outcomes to evaluate health-care quality: Basic principles, pitfalls and considerations.

ABSTRACT: A funnel plot is a graphical method to evaluate health-care quality by comparing hospital performances on certain outcomes. So far, in nephrology, this method has been applied to clinical outcomes like mortality and complications. However, patient-reported outcomes (PROs; eg, health-related quality of life [HRQOL]) are becoming increasingly important and should be incorporated into this quality assessment. Using funnel plots has several advantages, including clearly visualized precision, detection of volume-effects, discouragement of ranking hospitals and easy interpretation of results. However, without sufficient knowledge of underlying methods, it is easy to stumble into pitfalls, such as overinterpretation of standardized scores, incorrect direct comparisons of hospitals and assuming a

SUBMITTER: van der Willik EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7891340 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature