Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.

This book presents a comprehensive review of currently available Control Performance Assessment methods. It covers a broad range of classical and modern methods, with a main focus on assessment practice, and is intended to help practitioners learn and properly perform control assessment in the industrial reality. Further, it offers an educational guide for control engineers, who are currently in high demand in the industry. The book consists of three main parts. Firstly, a comprehensive review of available approaches is presented and discussed. The classical canon methods are extended with a discussion of nonlinear and complex alternative measures using non-Gaussian statistics, persistence and fractional calculations. Secondly, the methods’ applicability aspects are visualized with the aid of computer simulations, covering the most popular control philosophies used in the process industry. Lastly, a critical review of the methods discussed, on the basis of real-world industrial examples, rounds out the coverage.

This protocol is intended to provide Performance Evaluation Laboratories (PELs) and manufacturers with the WHO performance evaluation procedures for the prequalification assessment of HIV RDTs on urine submitted for WHO prequalification assessment

Although ability testing has been an American preoccupation since the 1920s, comparatively little systematic attention has been paid to understanding and measuring the kinds of human performance that tests are commonly used to predictâ€"such as success at school or work. Now, a sustained, large-scale effort has been made to develop measures that are very close to actual performance on the job. The four military services have carried out an ambitious study, called the Joint-Service Job Performance Measurement/Enlistment Standards (JPM) Project, that brings new sophistication to the measurement of performance in work settings. Volume 1 analyzes the JPM experience in the context of human resource management policy in the military. Beginning with a historical overview of the criterion problem, it looks closely at substantive and methodological issues in criterion research suggested by the project: the development of performance measures; sampling, logistical, and standardization problems; evaluating the reliability and content representativeness of performance measures; and the relationship between predictor scores and performance measuresâ€"valuable information that can also be useful in the civilian workplace.

Evaluated programs conducted under HHS. Arranged according to agency hierarchy. Entries give agency sponsor, project title, report title, performer, abstract, descriptors, status, availability, and other identifying information. Subject,sponsor, program indexes.

This large format book is the definitive text on vascular surgery written by expert editors and contributors. It is well supported by exceptional illustrative material. The book is invaluable to all those who work in vascular laboratories as wel.l as internists, cardiologists, vascular laboratory directors and staff, general surgeons involved in vascular surgery and the vascular surgery community in general Noninvasive Vascular Diagnosis comprehensively covers all aspects of noninvasive evaluation of the circulatory system in the extremities. The increasing popularity of noninvasive techniques is not reflected in the number of comprehensive works on the topic and it is clear from the success of the first edition that the demand for an updated volume is increasing.

Contains an inventory of evaluation reports produced by and for selected Federal agencies, including GAO evaluation reports that relate to the programs of those agencies.