Discussion Topic 1: What Does Quality Cost and Can We Budget for It?

Quality is an important concept in health care. How you plan to budget for quality patient care often directly points back to the budget. Address the following questions for this Discussion:

• How does a healthcare organization define quality? What determines that definition?
• How does quality influence the bottom line in the budget?
• Do variances play a role in ensuring quality care is provided to patients?
• Can we benchmark quality as related to financing health care?

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