Improving Diagnosis in Health Care

Improving Diagnosis in Health Care PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309377722
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
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.

Improving Diagnosis in Health Care

Improving Diagnosis in Health Care PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309377722
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Assessment of Diagnostic Technology in Health Care

Assessment of Diagnostic Technology in Health Care PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030904099X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Technology assessment can lead to the rapid application of essential diagnostic technologies and prevent the wide diffusion of marginally useful methods. In both of these ways, it can increase quality of care and decrease the cost of health care. This comprehensive monograph carefully explores methods of and barriers to diagnostic technology assessment and describes both the rationale and the guidelines for meaningful evaluation. While proposing a multi-institutional approach, it emphasizes some of the problems involved and defines a mechanism for improving the evaluation and use of medical technology and essential resources needed to enhance patient care.

Mathematics and Physics of Emerging Biomedical Imaging

Mathematics and Physics of Emerging Biomedical Imaging PDF Author: Committee on the Mathematics and Physics of Emerging Dynamic Biomedical Imaging
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309552923
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This cross-disciplinary book documents the key research challenges in the mathematical sciences and physics that could enable the economical development of novel biomedical imaging devices. It is hoped that the infusion of new insights from mathematical scientists and physicists will accelerate progress in imaging. Incorporating input from dozens of biomedical researchers who described what they perceived as key open problems of imaging that are amenable to attack by mathematical scientists and physicists, this book introduces the frontiers of biomedical imaging, especially the imaging of dynamic physiological functions, to the educated nonspecialist. Ten imaging modalities are covered, from the well-established (e.g., CAT scanning, MRI) to the more speculative (e.g., electrical and magnetic source imaging). For each modality, mathematics and physics research challenges are identified and a short list of suggested reading offered. Two additional chapters offer visions of the next generation of surgical and interventional techniques and of image processing. A final chapter provides an overview of mathematical issues that cut across the various modalities.

Overdiagnosed

Overdiagnosed PDF Author: H. Gilbert Welch
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807021997
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
An exposé on Big Pharma and the American healthcare system’s zeal for excessive medical testing, from a nationally recognized expert More screening doesn’t lead to better health—but can turn healthy people into patients. Going against the conventional wisdom reinforced by the medical establishment and Big Pharma that more screening is the best preventative medicine, Dr. Gilbert Welch builds a compelling counterargument that what we need are fewer, not more, diagnoses. Documenting the excesses of American medical practice that labels far too many of us as sick, Welch examines the social, ethical, and economic ramifications of a health-care system that unnecessarily diagnoses and treats patients, most of whom will not benefit from treatment, might be harmed by it, and would arguably be better off without screening. Drawing on 25 years of medical practice and research on the effects of medical testing, Welch explains in a straightforward, jargon-free style how the cutoffs for treating a person with “abnormal” test results have been drastically lowered just when technological advances have allowed us to see more and more “abnormalities,” many of which will pose fewer health complications than the procedures that ostensibly cure them. Citing studies that show that 10% of 2,000 healthy people were found to have had silent strokes, and that well over half of men over age sixty have traces of prostate cancer but no impairment, Welch reveals overdiagnosis to be rampant for numerous conditions and diseases, including diabetes, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, gallstones, abdominal aortic aneuryisms, blood clots, as well as skin, prostate, breast, and lung cancers. With genetic and prenatal screening now common, patients are being diagnosed not with disease but with “pre-disease” or for being at “high risk” of developing disease. Revealing the economic and medical forces that contribute to overdiagnosis, Welch makes a reasoned call for change that would save us from countless unneeded surgeries, excessive worry, and exorbitant costs, all while maintaining a balanced view of both the potential benefits and harms of diagnosis. Drawing on data, clinical studies, and anecdotes from his own practice, Welch builds a solid, accessible case against the belief that more screening always improves health care.

Essential Clinical Procedures

Essential Clinical Procedures PDF Author: Richard W. Dehn
Publisher: Elsevier Health Sciences
ISBN: 0323624685
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
Provide safe and effective care to every patient with the fully revised 4th Edition of Essential Clinical Procedures. Written by experts in the field, this widely used reference shows you step by step how to perform more than 70 of the most common diagnostic and treatment-related procedures in today’s primary care and specialist settings. You’ll find clear, concise coverage of the skills you need to know, including new and advanced procedures and new procedure videos. Covers patient preparation, the proper use of instruments, and potential dangers and complications involved in common procedures, as well as nonprocedural issues such as informed consent, standard precautions, patient education, and procedure documentation. Includes new chapters on Point-of-Care Ultrasound and Ring Removal, as well as 35 new procedure videos. Features significantly revised content on cryosurgery • injection techniques • arterial puncture • shoulder/finger subluxations • sterile technique • outpatient coding • casting and splinting • blood cultures • standard precautions • and more. Contains more than 200 high-quality illustrations, including updated images of office pulmonary function testing and wound closure. Uses a consistently formatted presentation to help you find information quickly. Reflects the latest evidence-based protocols and national and international guidelines throughout.

Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection

Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309111145
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Early detection is essential to the control of emerging, reemerging, and novel infectious diseases, whether naturally occurring or intentionally introduced. Containing the spread of such diseases in a profoundly interconnected world requires active vigilance for signs of an outbreak, rapid recognition of its presence, and diagnosis of its microbial cause, in addition to strategies and resources for an appropriate and efficient response. Although these actions are often viewed in terms of human public health, they also challenge the plant and animal health communities. Surveillance, defined as "the continual scrutiny of all aspects of occurrence and spread of a disease that are pertinent to effective control", involves the "systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of health data." Disease detection and diagnosis is the act of discovering a novel, emerging, or reemerging disease or disease event and identifying its cause. Diagnosis is "the cornerstone of effective disease control and prevention efforts, including surveillance." Disease surveillance and detection relies heavily on the astute individual: the clinician, veterinarian, plant pathologist, farmer, livestock manager, or agricultural extension agent who notices something unusual, atypical, or suspicious and brings this discovery in a timely way to the attention of an appropriate representative of human public health, veterinary medicine, or agriculture. Most developed countries have the ability to detect and diagnose human, animal, and plant diseases. Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges-Finding Solutions, Workshop Summary is part of a 10 book series and summarizes the recommendations and presentations of the workshop.

Advancing Nuclear Medicine Through Innovation

Advancing Nuclear Medicine Through Innovation PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309134153
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Nearly 20 million nuclear medicine procedures are carried out each year in the United States alone to diagnose and treat cancers, cardiovascular disease, and certain neurological disorders. Many of the advancements in nuclear medicine have been the result of research investments made during the past 50 years where these procedures are now a routine part of clinical care. Although nuclear medicine plays an important role in biomedical research and disease management, its promise is only beginning to be realized. Advancing Nuclear Medicine Through Innovation highlights the exciting emerging opportunities in nuclear medicine, which include assessing the efficacy of new drugs in development, individualizing treatment to the patient, and understanding the biology of human diseases. Health care and pharmaceutical professionals will be most interested in this book's examination of the challenges the field faces and its recommendations for ways to reduce these impediments.

Oxford Handbook of Clinical Diagnosis

Oxford Handbook of Clinical Diagnosis PDF Author: Huw Llewelyn
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019967986X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 683

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Book Description
This handbook describes the diagnostic process clearly and logically, aiding medical students and others who wish to improve their diagnostic performance and to learn more about the diagnostic process.

Unequal Treatment

Unequal Treatment PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030908265X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 781

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Book Description
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

Diagnostic Imaging: Interventional Procedures E-Book

Diagnostic Imaging: Interventional Procedures E-Book PDF Author: Brandt C. Wible
Publisher: Elsevier Health Sciences
ISBN: 0323547176
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 909

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Book Description
More than 100 interventional procedures, lavishly illustrated with 800+ outstanding medical images, highlight the second edition of this practical reference. Dr. Brandt C. Wible and his expert author team provide carefully updated information in a concise, bulleted format, keeping you current with recent advances in interventional radiology. Succinct text, outstanding illustrations, and up-to-date content make this title a must-have reference for trainees as well as seasoned interventionalists and vascular surgeons who need a single, go-to guide in this fast-changing area. Organized by procedure type and formatted for quick reference at the point of care Meticulously updated throughout, with new information on interventional oncology, including radioembolizaiton, transarterial chemoembolization, and percutaneous ablation; IVC filter placement and removal; stroke intervention; and venous recanalization and thrombolysis Hundreds of high-quality case images and graphics (many new to this edition) clearly demonstrate procedural steps, complications, treatment alternatives, variant anatomy, and more—all fully annotated to highlight the most important diagnostic information New chapters including lumbar puncture and myelogram and celiac plexus block Newly streamlined discussions of procedural steps create a simpler, more focused text designed for quick reference Updated expected outcomes from recent prominent literature Expert ConsultTM eBook version included with purchase. This enhanced eBook experience allows you to search all of the text, figures, Q&As, and references from the book on a variety of devices.