Health States Indexes

Abstract

The problem of measurement, and in particular of quantitative assessment of the health of a designated population or of the health care rendered by a health care system, health program, or individual provider, is fundamental to the application of operations research to health care systems. There are two primary aspects to this problem. First, a measure or index must accurately and reliably evaluate the impact of the system under consideration upon the health of the population. When used as a static measure of health, such as in quality assessment or clinical decision making, this is sufficient. However, for health planning in the broadest sense, it must also be designed. so that it can be manipulated in the model.