Developing Australia and New Zealand IBD clinical Quality Indicators

Full Title: Developing clinical quality indicators for an Australian and New Zealand Inflammatory Bowel Disease quality improvement initiative: A modified Delphi method

Lead Investigator: Peter De Cruz

Project overview:

Quality of care in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has recently been described as suboptimal, reactive and highly variable. Poor quality of care can lead to detrimental long-term outcomes for patients and further inflate healthcare costs in an already costly disease. In order to improve quality of care, quality first needs to be defined and able to be measured. Quality of care can be objectively measured via quality indicators (QIs) which serve as objective measures to report on, benchmark and improve care.  Although a number of quality indicators for IBD have been developed across other countries, no quality indicators have been developed in Australia and New Zealand specifically for the purpose of undertaking future quality improvement initiatives. 

The study will gain expert opinion from experts in inflammatory bowel disease across Australia and New Zealand including a range of health care providers and patients.