Internal Quality Scorecards

The patient volume for the hospital’s pulmonary medicine service has decreased steadily in the past three months after nearly two years of increases. The same report indicates that the costs for treating these patients increased during the same time period.  Explain which of these issues you believe should take precedence, or needs more immediate attention: the decrease in the volume of patients, or the increase in the costs of treating the patients. Also identify the possible sources of clinical (primary) and administrative data the quality management team should research in order to find the causes for both the decrease patient volume and rising costs per patient.