[Download] "Learning to Deliver Better Health Care: Rigorous Study of the Most Effective Ways to Deliver Care As Well As What Care Works Best can Result in Not Only Better Treatment But Also Significant Cost Savings." by Issues in Science and Technology ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Learning to Deliver Better Health Care: Rigorous Study of the Most Effective Ways to Deliver Care As Well As What Care Works Best can Result in Not Only Better Treatment But Also Significant Cost Savings.
- Author : Issues in Science and Technology
- Release Date : January 22, 2008
- Genre: Engineering,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 222 KB
Description
Most Americans assume that the health care they receive is determined by firm medical evidence, that the practice of medicine is fundamentally scientific. But this is far from true. For over 30 years, John Wennberg and others have been documenting remarkable variations in both clinical practice and spending across U.S. regions. These variations highlight the serious challenges faced by scientists, clinicians, academic medicine and policymakers--and the opportunities to improve both the quality and costs of care. To understand the problems, the promise, and a path forward, it helps to distinguish two distinct categories of care: biologically targeted interventions and care-delivery strategies. Biologically targeted interventions are focused on a specific anatomic problem or disease process. Examples include the decision about whether to adopt a specific screening test for cancer or whether to treat a patient with prostate cancer with surgery or radiation therapy. Such interventions can be well specified not only in terms of the underlying anatomic or physiologic problem to be addressed, but also in terms of the expected intermediate and long-term outcomes and how these vary across clinical subgroups. Many of the dramatic improvements in health achieved over the past decades are a result of advances in biomedical knowledge and the development of such biologically targeted interventions.