ABSTRACT
Organizational performance assessment is essential to maintain and improve quality of health care services (Leggat et al., 1998). There is not, however a single accepted and adopted model (Sicotte et al., 1998), although performance indicators have been developed and evaluated for a number of years (Leggat et al., 1998). One type of indicator considered as an instrument to assess the quality of care is clinical outcome indicators. Studies documenting clinical outcomes of different types of health care interventions have multiplied in the last two decades (Mitchell et al., 1997). The results of these studies, when combined with other types of information, can be very useful to physicians with administrative responsibilities and hospital managers in their efforts to change aspects of the organization and delivery of the services in order to improve the quality of health care.
