Guidelines for the clinical practice of medicine have been proposed as the solution to the whole range of current health care problems. This new book presents the first balanced and highly practical view of guidelines--their strengths, their limitations, and how they can be used most effectively to benefit health care.
The volume offers
Recommendations and a proposed framework for strengthening development and use of guidelines.
Numerous examples of guidelines.
A ready-to-use instrument for assessing the soundness of guidelines.
Six case studies exploring issues involved when practitioners use guidelines on a daily basis.
With a real-world outlook, the volume reviews efforts by agencies and organizations to disseminate guidelines and examines how well guidelines are functioning--exploring issues such as patient information, liability, costs, computerization, and the adaptation of national guidelines to local needs.

This book establishes a framework for assessing health care reform proposals and their implementation. It helps clarify objectives, identifies issues to be addressed in proposals, distinguishes between short- and long-term expectations and achievements, and directs attention to important but sometimes neglected questions about the organization and provision of health care services. In addition, the volume presents a discussion and analysis of issues essential to achieving fundamental goals of health care reform: to maintain and improve health and well-being, to make basic health coverage universal, and to encourage the efficient use of limited resources. The book is a useful resource for anyone developing or assessing options for reform. Table of Contents Front Matter Preamble Extending Access to Health Care Containing Health Care Costs Assuring the Quality of Care Financing Reform Improving the Infrastructure for Effective Change Conclusion References

Regional health care databases are being established around the country with the goal of providing timely and useful information to policymakers, physicians, and patients. But their emergence is raising important and sometimes controversial questions about the collection, quality, and appropriate use of health care data. Based on experience with databases now in operation and in development, Health Data in the Information Age provides a clear set of guidelines and principles for exploiting the potential benefits of aggregated health data?without jeopardizing confidentiality. A panel of experts identifies characteristics of emerging health database organizations (HDOs). The committee explores how HDOs can maintain the quality of their data, what policies and practices they should adopt, how they can prepare for linkages with computer-based patient records, and how diverse groups from researchers to health care administrators might use aggregated data. Health Data in the Information Age offers frank analysis and guidelines that will be invaluable to anyone interested in the operation of health care databases. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary Introduction Health Databases and Health Database Organizations: Uses, Benefits, and Concerns Public Disclosure of Data on Health Care Providers and Practitioners Confidentiality and Privacy of Personal Data References A Fact-Finding for the Committee on Regional Health Data Networks Committee on Regional Health Data Networks Biographical Sketches Glossary Acronyms Index

Health care for the elderly American is among our nation's more pressing social issues. Our society wishes to ensure quality health care for all older people, but there is growing concern about our ability to maintain and improve quality in the face of efforts to contain health care costs.
Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance answers the U.S. Congress' call for the Institute of Medicine to design a strategic plan for assessing and assuring the quality of medical care for the elderly. This book presents a proposed strategic plan for improving quality assurance in the Medicare program, along with steps and timetables for implementing the plan by the year 2000 and the 10 recommendations for action by Congress.
The book explores quality of care--how it is defined, measured, and improved--and reviews different types of quality problems. Major issues that affect approaches to assessing and assuring quality are examined.
Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance will be immediately useful to a wide audience, including policymakers, health administrators, individual providers, specialists in issues of the older American, researchers, educators, and students.