This supplement to Annals of Internal Medicine contains articles developed from the Regenstrief Conference entitled "Measuring Quality, Outcomes, and Cost of Care Using Large Databases" that was held 4-6 September 1996 at the Turkey Run State Park in Marshall, Indiana.
The meeting was the sixth in a biennial series sponsored by the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care. The Institute was founded in 1969 by Samuel N. Regenstrief, a philanthropist and successful businessman who was convinced that health care systems could be designed to improve the delivery and efficiency of care for everyone. He had this vision long before outcomes research became the vogue.
In 1985, the Directors of the Regenstrief Foundation initiated the Regenstrief Conference. The informal setting of the conference in a state park is designed to foster both the exchange of information and personal discourse among multi-disciplinary experts on a specific health services issue and its policy implications. The use of large databases for health care research was the topic of the Third Regenstrief Conference in 1989. By 1996, the role of large databases in management and research of health care had expanded to the extent that we felt it was time to revisit the topic. The focus of the Sixth Regenstrief Conference was the use of large databases to measure quality, outcomes, and costs of health care. Experts from various disciplines were invited to speak on related topics, and they have incorporated comments from the discussants and the audience into their papers for this supplement.
We thank all participants for their lively contributions to another successful Regenstrief Conference and particularly appreciate the efforts of the presenters and discussants. We are also grateful to the members of the planning committee: Charles Clark, MD; Daniel Clark, PhD; David Smith, MD; William Tierney, MD; Fredric Wolinsky PhD; and Xiao-Hua (Andrew) Zhou, PhD. We greatly appreciate Joanne Fox's seamless orchestration of conference details and the efforts of her able staff, Cindy Byrne and Leslie Clemons.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Regenstrief Institute, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research small conference grant, the Department of Veterans Affairs Research Service, and an educational grant from Eli Lilly and Company. Publication of the proceedings was supported by the Regenstrief Institute.
Barry P. Katz, PhD
Indiana University School of Medicine; Indianapolis, IN 46202
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