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.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

In her groundbreaking book The Southwest Airlines Way, Jody Hoffer Gittell revealed the management secrets of the company Fortune magazine called “the most successful airline in history.” Now, the bestselling business author explains how to apply those same principles in one of our nation’s largest, most important, and increasingly complex industries. High Performance Healthcare explains the critical concept of “relational coordination”—coordinating work through shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect. Because of the way healthcare is organized, weak links exist throughout the chain of communication. Gittell clearly demonstrates that relational coordination strengthens those weak links, enabling providers to deliver high quality, efficient care to their patients. Using Gittell’s innovative management methods, you will improve quality, maximize efficiency, and compete more effectively. High Performance Healthcare walks you step by step through the process of: Identifying weak areas of relational coordination within your organization Transforming work practices that are creating barriers to relational coordination Building a high performance work system to foster consistent relational coordination across all disciplines The book includes case studies illustrating how some healthcare organizations are already transforming themselves using Gittell’s proven tools. It concludes by identifying industry-level obstacles to high performance healthcare and showing how individual organizations and their leaders can support sweeping change at the highest levels. Policy changes and increased access to care will not alone answer the healthcare industry’s problems. Timely, accurate, problem-solving communication that crosses all organizational boundaries is a powerful response to business as usual. High Performance Healthcare explains exactly how to achieve this crucial dynamic, providing a long-awaited cure to an industry in crisis.

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.

"I was thrilled to see content that focuses on quality improvement, patient safety, interprofessional collaboration, care coordination, and other content that supports the role of the AGNP as a clinical leader and change agent. The authors give these topics the attention that they deserve, with clear, insightful guidance and importantly, the evidence base. The chapters that address roles (including during disasters!), settings of care, billing, and medication use address salient issues that will help the fledgling AGNP to hit the ground running and the seasoned AGNP to keep current. –Marie Boltz, PhD, GNP-BC, FGSA, FAAN Elouise Ross Eberly and Robert Eberly Endowed Professor Toss and Carol Nese College of Nursing, Penn State University From the Foreword Written for Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioners, faculty, and students, this primary text encompasses the full scope of AGNP primary care practice across multiple healthcare settings including telehealth. The text emphasizes the best available evidence to promote person-centered care, quality improvement of care, interprofessional collaboration, and reducing healthcare costs. The text delivers timely information about current healthcare initiatives in the U.S., including care coordination across the healthcare continuum, interprofessional collaboration, and accountable care organizations. Disease-focused chapters contain general and specific population-based assessment and interprofessional care strategies to both common and complex health issues. They offer consistent content on emergencies, relevant social determinants of health, and ethical dilemmas. The text also prepares students for the administrative aspects of practice with information on the physical exam, medications, billing, coding, and documentation. Concise, accessible information is supported by numerous illustrations, learning objectives, quality and safety alerts, clinical pearls, and case studies demonstrating best practice. A robust ancillary package includes an Instructor's Manual with case studies and teaching guides, a Test Bank reflective of clinical situations and patient conditions, PowerPoints covering key concepts, and an Image Bank of skin conditions and other figures. Key Features: Covers several key courses in the curriculum for ease of teaching/learning Embraces a broad population focus addressing specific care needs of adolescents through older adults Facilitates safe care coordination and reinforces best practices across various health care settings including telehealth Fosters understanding, diagnosis, and management of patients with multimorbid conditions Incorporates evidence-based practice information and guidelines throughout, to ensure optimal, informed patient care A robust ancillary package includes an Instructor's Manual, a Test Bank, PowerPoints, and an Image Bank.

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement 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.

Offering step-by-step guidance on how to properly document patient care, this updated Second Edition presents 90 of the most common clinical problems encountered on the wards and clinics in an easy-to-read, two-page layout using the familiar "SOAP" note format. Emphasizing the patient’s clinical problem, not the diagnosis, this pocket-sized quick reference teaches both clinical reasoning and documentation skills and is ideal for use by medical students, Pas, and NPs during the Family Medicine rotation.

This book is intended as an introduction to family medicine and to the behaviors, concepts, and skills upon which the clinical practice of the discipline is based. The chapters that follow will provide a foundation for the student during the pre-doctoral years, a base upon which he or she can build during residency training and practice. Fundamentals of Family Medicine presents Part I (the first 36 chapters) of Family Medicine: Principles and Practice. Because it is intended that the student will eventually move from use of this extracted material to the full textbook, the preface to the comprehensive edition has been included and cross-references to later chapters have been retained. Why publish a student edition? Medical students in various schools partici pate in courses covering a wide range of topics including communication skills, family dynamics, medical ethics, human sexuality, disease prevention, aging and death. Departments of family medicine generally assume a leadership role in presentation of such courses, and this book is intended to integrate these eclectic topics into a single textbook.

The National Roundtable on Health Care Quality was established in 1995 by the Institute of Medicine. The Roundtable consists of experts formally appointed through procedures of the National Research Council (NRC) who represent both public and private-sector perspectives and appropriate areas of substantive expertise (not organizations). From the public sector, heads of appropriate Federal agencies serve. It offers a unique, nonadversarial environment to explore ongoing rapid changes in the medical marketplace and the implications of these changes for the quality of health and health care in this nation. The Roundtable has a liaison panel focused on quality of care in managed care organizations. The Roundtable convenes nationally prominent representatives of the private and public sector (regional, state and federal), academia, patients, and the health media to analyze unfolding issues concerning quality, to hold workshops and commission papers on significant topics, and when appropriate, to produce periodic statements for the nation on quality of care matters. By providing a structured opportunity for regular communication and interaction, the Roundtable fosters candid discussion among individuals who represent various sides of a given issue.