This research project is designed to investigate the
steps Pennsylvania hospitals are taking to adapt their
organizational structures and processes to the demands of
three quality-assurance-related regulations: the
professional standards of the Joint Commission on the
Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, the legal
requirements of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost
Containment Council for reporting and publishing qualityrelated
data and use of the MedisGroups severity indexing
system, and the quality standards of the Medicare program
as embodied in the third scope of work of the Keystone Peer
Review Organization.