Quality of Care for Work-Associated Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the quality of care provided to individuals with workers' compensation claims related to Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and identify patient characteristics associated with receiving better care.

METHODS: We recruited subjects with new claims for CTS from 30 occupational clinics affiliated with Kaiser Permanente Northern California. We applied 45 process-oriented quality measures to 477 subjects' medical records, and performed multivariate logistic regression to identify patient characteristics associated with quality.

RESULTS: Overall, 81.6% of care adhered to recommended standards. Certain tasks related to assessing and managing activity were underused. Patients with classic/probable Katz diagrams, positive electrodiagnostic tests, and higher incomes received better care. However, age, sex, and race/ethnicity were not associated with quality.

CONCLUSIONS: Care processes for work-associated CTS frequently adhered to quality measures. Clinical factors were more strongly associated with quality than demographic and socioeconomic ones.