Quality Indicators of Primary Health Care Facilities in Austria

Background The strengthening of primary health care is one major goal of the current national health reform in Austria. In this context, a new interdisciplinary concept was developed in 2014 that defines structures and requirements for future primary health care facilities. Objective The aim of this project was the development of quality indicators for the evaluation of the scheduled primary health care facilities in Austria, which are in accordance with the new Austrian concept. Methods We used the RAND/NPCRDC method for the development and selection of the quality indicators. We conducted systematic literature searches for existing measures in international databases for quality indicators as well as in bibliographic databases. All retrieved measures were evaluated and rated by an expert panel in a 2-step process regarding relevance and feasibility. Results Overall, the literature searches yielded 281 potentially relevant quality indicators, which were summarized to 65 different quality measures for primary health care. Out of these, the panel rated and accepted 30 measures as relevant and feasible for use in Austria. Five of these indicators were structure measures, 14 were process measures and the remaining 11 were outcome measures. Based on the Austrian primary health care concept, the final set of quality indicators was grouped in the 5 following domains: Access to primary health care (5), quality of care (15), continuity of care (5), coordination of care (4), and safety (1). Conclusion This set of quality measures largely covers the four defined functions of primary health care. It enables standardized evaluation of primary health care facilities in Austria regarding the implementation of the Austrian primary health care concept as well as improvement in healthcare of the population.