The Relationship of Physicians' Medical Recording Performance to Their Medical Care Performance

Within eight diagnostic categories on an individual case level of analysis, separate indices of recorded physician conformance to predetermined criteria for optimal care were derived. One index for each diagnosis was composed of measures that depended upon a physician's medical record recording and another was composed of measures recorded independently of the physician. Correlation coefficients between indices averaged +0.23 with a range from -0.03 to +0.53. The magnitudes of the correlations were related to the estimated reliabilities of the subindices. These data, congruent with previous research, indicate that measures of good medical recording performance and good medical care performance are related, that the overall relationship is not at all perfect, and that the reliabilities of the measures may attenuate the degrees of obtained relationships.