RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 What can the UK learn from the USA about improving the quality and safety of healthcare?
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP 551
OP 558
DO 10.7861/clinmedicine.6-6-551
VO 6
IS 6
A1 Charles RV Tomson
A1 Donald M Berwick
YR 2006
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/6/6/551.abstract
AB The US healthcare system provides evidence that spending more on healthcare does not result in better care, but also offers many lessons and surprises on how the quality and safety of healthcare can be improved. The US Institute of Medicine has clearly articulated what needs to be achieved. A series of US agencies, including the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), other major players, and the Hospital Quality Alliance, routinely collect and report on numerous measures of the quality and safety of inpatient and outpatient healthcare. Most attention to improving care in the UK has focused on vertically integrated, closed healthcare systems, but the US experience provides additional models from the work of Quality Improvement Organizations and of numerous voluntary organisations that sponsor collaborative improvement.