System used to track treatment or care and responses. The methods for measuring outcomes are quite varied among providers. Much disagreement exists regarding the best practice or tools to utilize to measure outcomes.
This term has many meanings depending on its applicability. Simply an outcome is a change in a situation resulting from an action. More specifically, in relation to health, an outcome is the possible results that may stem from exposure to a causal factor; or the result of preventive, medical, surgical or therapeutic interventions or non-intervention. An outcome can also be viewed as the end result obtained from utilizing the structure and processes of health care delivery. Outcomes are often viewed as the bottom-line measure of the effectiveness of the health care delivery system.... outcome
The complete range of possible values for a measurement (e.g. the set of possible responses to a question, the physically possible range for a set of body weights). Measurement scales are sometimes classified into five major types, according to the quantitative character of the scale: dichotomous scale: One that arranges items into either of two mutually exclusive categories. nominal scale: Classification into unordered qualitative categories, such as race, religion, and country of birth, as measurements of individual attributes are purely nominal scales, as there is no inherent order to their categories. ordinal scale: Classification into ordered qualitative categories, such as social class, where the values have a distinct order, but their categories are qualitative in that there is no natural (numerical) distance between their possible values. interval scale: An (equal) interval involving assignment of values with a natural distance between them, so that a particular distance (interval) between two values in one region of the scale meaningfully represents the same distance between two values in another region of the scale. An example is date of birth. ratio scale: A ratio is an interval scale with a true zero point, so that ratios between values are meaningfully defined. Examples are weight, height, blood count and income, as in each case it is meaningful to speak of one value as being so many times greater or less than another.... measurement scale
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