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Access satisfaction—Perceptions of the convenience with which services are scheduled, the hours of service, the distance to service, and perceived availability (Rees Lewis, 1994).
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Atmospherics—Perceptions of the environment in which services are delivered.
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Benchmarking—Process of comparing one’s own procedures and outcomes with a known or best available gold standard in order to improve consumer or client service outcomes.
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Care paths—Documentation mechanisms that indicate if the clinical pathway has been followed.
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Clinical pathways—Sometimes called critical pathways, outline of agreed-upon steps for the diagnosis and interdisciplinary management of a condition or procedure for individual patients.
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Clinical significance—Changes in a measured variable that result in useful changes.
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Cohort data—Measurements taken from a group of patients with similar characteristics.
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Comparative statistics—Determine whether two or more groups of data are different and suggest cause-and-effect relationships between an intervention and an outcome.
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Continuous quality improvement (CQI)—Ongoing process of measuring the quality of services provided and making the services more effective (Coleman & Endsley, 1999; McIntosh, May, & Stymiest, 1994).
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Correlative statistics—Describe relationship of changes in one variable to changes in another variable.
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Cost-benefit—Positive benefits of providing services relative to the cost or negative aspects of providing the service (Thompson & Cohen, 1990).
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Cost-effectiveness—Comparison of the cost to produce the same outcome by similar providers or service delivery systems.
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Cost-utility—Estimates of patient preferences for different health states relative to the length and quality of life and available interventions (Haas, 1993; Luce & Simpson, 1995).
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Criterion reference—Observations or measurements that reflect the patient’s performance of an activity as compared with a task analysis of that activity.
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Data harvesting—Process of identifying the measures of interest in records to create a data set.
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Data mining—Process of exploring large data sets.
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Data recording form—Form to record data on the variables of interest; useful for reducing data omissions and translation errors.
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Data set—Collection of organized observations and measurements.
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Descriptive statistics—Distribution of data points for a variable or category.
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Dissemination—Process of presenting ideas or study results publicly.
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Documentation—Process or products of recording the status, clinical decision-making, and the provision of health services.
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Episode of intervention—Services provided without interruption for a patient condition or problem, generally marked by an initial evaluation at the start and a discharge summary at the end.
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Evaluate-and-treat approach—Approach to patient care that is oriented toward the identification of impairments and/or deviations from normal function and the linking of these deviations to interventions that ...