How one medical specialty society's use of measures and reporting dramatically improved patient care

摘要

As painful as it might be to hear, when it comes to patient care we're not as good as we think we are. Not long ago, doctors at several renowned American medical institutions were stunned to learn that, following submission of their hospital data to Medicare, they had repeatedly neglected to implement basic steps in the care of patients-eg, giving a beta-blocker to all heart attack victims within 24 hours of admission and continuing the prescription upon discharge. Jonathan Perlin, MD, then Acting Under Secretary for Health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, summed up the surprising findings: "Absent the data, you think you're doing a pretty good job."