This
review can be helpful for the healthcare organizations developing
standards for arthritis care or considering review of present standards used in
rheumatologic practice.
Inflammatory arthritis is a type of arthritis leading to inflammation of joints. Quality standards appear to be efficient tools in advocacy, education, and for quality improvement purposes linked with arthritis. The purpose of this review is to outline the current prospects of quality standards for inflammatory arthritis (including rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and spondyloarthritis), and to make a description based on the methodology for standard development.
For
achieving this purpose, an audit was made by reviewing three medical databases
and major websites of rheumatology and health care quality. An abstract was
made based on standards and they were categorized by relating to the structure,
processes, or outcomes of health care.10 sets including over 300 standards were
abstracted and they were classified into 29 themes. 62% themes were related to
processes and 38% themes were related to structure. All the standards enclosed
many aspects along with the continuum of patient care from early identification
and access to multidisciplinary care, to patient treatment and education, but
there were no outcome standards. The methodology used to make standards was
highly heterogeneous and patients were involved in only 50% of the development
teams.
It
is culminated that this study provides a complete report on quality standards
in inflammatory arthritis and it also emphasized two uses of the term
“Standard” in the quality literature as follows: (i) a numeric target for
performance measurement and (ii) a statement about minimum, optimum, or
aspirational goals of care that may not be easily measurable. In future
patients living with arthritis can be included in standard development and
there should be rigorous and transparent methodology which can be used for
standard development. It should also consider development of quality measures
alongside standards to enhance uptake and impact of both tools.
Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism
Standards of care for inflammatory arthritis: A literature review
Claire E.H. Barber et al.
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