Quality In Family Practice Book Of Tools

This Quality Book of Tools is a unique collection of quality performance indicators for primary care in Canada. Using this book will help family doctors and other primary care providers continue to improve the quality of care in their practice. Cheryl Levitt (MBBCh CCFP FCFP) is a family physician and professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. Linda Hilts (RN BScN MEd) is a registered nurse and an assistant professor and associate member of the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University.

Advances in medical, biomedical and health services research have reduced the level of uncertainty in clinical practice. Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) complement this progress by establishing standards of care backed by strong scientific evidence. CPGs are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care. These statements are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and costs of alternative care options. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust examines the current state of clinical practice guidelines and how they can be improved to enhance healthcare quality and patient outcomes. Clinical practice guidelines now are ubiquitous in our healthcare system. The Guidelines International Network (GIN) database currently lists more than 3,700 guidelines from 39 countries. Developing guidelines presents a number of challenges including lack of transparent methodological practices, difficulty reconciling conflicting guidelines, and conflicts of interest. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust explores questions surrounding the quality of CPG development processes and the establishment of standards. It proposes eight standards for developing trustworthy clinical practice guidelines emphasizing transparency; management of conflict of interest ; systematic review-guideline development intersection; establishing evidence foundations for and rating strength of guideline recommendations; articulation of recommendations; external review; and updating. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust shows how clinical practice guidelines can enhance clinician and patient decision-making by translating complex scientific research findings into recommendations for clinical practice that are relevant to the individual patient encounter, instead of implementing a one size fits all approach to patient care. This book contains information directly related to the work of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), as well as various Congressional staff and policymakers. It is a vital resource for medical specialty societies, disease advocacy groups, health professionals, private and international organizations that develop or use clinical practice guidelines, consumers, clinicians, and payers.

Much is new in Family Medicine since the last edition of our textbook. For example, not only is the therapy of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) much different than a few years ago; the epidemiol ogy of the disease has also changed and more than half of the family physicians in a rural state such as Oregon have already managed patients with HIV disease or AIDS. 1 There are new immunization recommendations for children and new antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections. Computers are bringing medical informatics and on-line consultation into office practice. Medicare physician payment reform is underway and the reality of rationing medical care has been recognized. There has been a recent increase in student interest in a family practice career,2 coincidental with a Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) recommendation that at least 50 percent of all residency graduates 3 should enter practice as generalists. Also there is increasing awareness of the need for a 4 Center for Family Practice and Primary Care at the National Institutes of Health. This all-new fourth edition is intended to present the scientific and practical basis of family medicine with special attention to what's new in family medicine. The emphasis is on how the physician provides continuing and comprehensive care for persons of all ages, with clinical content selected from the perspective offamily physicians. The format ofthe book, like the practice of family medicine, continues to change.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

These are peer-reviewed handy point-of-care tools to support clinical learning in Family Medicine. The content is aligned with SHARC-FM - the Shared Canadian Curriculum in Family Medicine. Objectives and more information is available at sharcfm.com.

This valuable new book provides quality improvement teams, and their leaders, with a comprehensive set of tools and techniques to solve problems and improve processes in their organizations. The book offers experienced teams instruction on more advanced, less frequently used tools as well as provides detailed guidelines on the basic tools for newly formed teams. The seven quality tools, seven management tools, and an additional 20 tools and techniques have also been incorporated into this title. Both the service and manufacturing industries and environments will find the applications useful. Each tool and technique includes sections that describe the tool, key points in using it, typical applications, an example, and steps in using the tool.

Advances in medical technology increase both the efficacy and efficiency of medical practice, and mobile technologies enable modern doctors and nurses to treat patients remotely from anywhere in the world. This technology raises issues of quality of care and medical ethics, which must be addressed. E-Health and Telemedicine: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications explores recent advances in mobile medicine and how this technology impacts modern medical care. Three volumes of comprehensive coverage on crucial topics in wireless technologies for enhanced medical care make this multi-volume publication a critical reference source for doctors, nurse practitioners, hospital administrators, and researchers and academics in all areas of the medical field. This seminal publication features comprehensive chapters on all aspects of e-health and telemedicine, including implementation strategies; use cases in cardiology, infectious diseases, and cytology, among others; care of individuals with autism spectrum disorders; and medical image analysis.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/