Quality of care indicators for population-based primary care in New Zealand

Aim. To develop a set of non-invasive, evidence-based, population-based quality of care indicators for primary care in New Zealand and to test their feasibility. Methods. New Zealand, British and Australian publications were reviewed and a set of quality of care indicators was constructed. These were trialed on data collected from seventeen fully computerised practices from the FirstHealth network of general practices. Results. 28 indicators are proposed in five categories: smoking cessation, preventive health activities, prescribing quality, chronic disease management and data quality. We were able to calculate ten indicators from data already collected routinely, a further twelve could be calculated now with more sophisticated data queries and six would require the trial practices to collect farther data. Conclusions. While any set of indicators is arbitrary there are sufficient research data to support a set of evidence-based, population-focused, quality of care indicators in New Zealand primary health care. In computerised practices these indicators can be calculated from routinely collected data.