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Preparing for the 21st Century: Focusing on Quality in a Changing Health Care System (1997) / Chapter Skim
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4. A Carefully Constructed Knowledge Base is Needed to Improve the Quality of Medical Practice
Pages 4-7

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From page 4...
... Effectively functioning markets require that patients, employers, and other consumers have good information for decision making, including knowledge about the performance of health plans and the efficacy, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of health services, both new and established. Health-services researchers, government agencies, health plans, purchaser coalitions, and others have done much to improve ways of measuring health outcomes, comparing the outcomes of different health care practices, evaluating the performance of health care providers and practitioners, and developing credible and useful guidance for patients and clinicians in making medical decisions.
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From page 5...
... The multiplicity of public agencies at federal and state levels with oversight responsibility and the range of private organizations that accredit health care organizations and review care, as well as internal quality-improvement efforts of health plans, would lead some to believe that assurance of quality is well in hand. Unfortunately, duplication of effort and gaps in measurement coexist.
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From page 6...
... This situation underscores the need for efforts aimed at protecting and improving the quality of health care to be broadly focused in identifying problems and promoting agreement on solutions. For more information: · Health Data in the Information Age: Use, Disclosure, and Privacy, Committee on Regional Health Data Networks, 1994 · Employment and Health Benefits: A Connection at Risk, Committee on Employer-Based Health Benefits, 1993 Wiclespread CPR use should be achievable within a decade.
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From page 7...
... The Computer-Based Patient Record: An Essential Technology for Health Care, Committee on Improving the Patient Record in Response to Increasing Functional Requirements and Technological Advances, 1991 · C-4. Health Datain thelnformation age: Use, Disclosure, and Privacy, Committee on Regional Health Data Networks, 1 994 · C-5, Employment and Health Benefits: A Connection at Risk, Committee on Employer-Based Health Benefits, 1993 Conclusion Who neecis to be we// informed/ anc'concernec/ about quality of care?
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Key Terms

  • health data
  • medical information
  • patient record
  • clinical practice
  • medicare beneficiaries

  • health databases
  • health plan
  • patient information
  • improve quality
  • personal medical

  • care practices
  • care organizations
  • care professionals
  • hold health
  • effectively functioning

  • credit organizations
  • developing credible
  • involve health
  • adjust payments
  • written word

  • care community
  • competing objectives
  • policymakers throughout
  • efforts aimed
  • medical decisions

  • health benefits
  • care institutions
  • improving average
  • role begins
  • own health


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