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.
The World Health Organization defines the social determinants of health as "the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life." These forces and systems include economic policies, development agendas, cultural and social norms, social policies, and political systems. In an era of pronounced human migration, changing demographics, and growing financial gaps between rich and poor, a fundamental understanding of how the conditions and circumstances in which individuals and populations exist affect mental and physical health is imperative. Educating health professionals about the social determinants of health generates awareness among those professionals about the potential root causes of ill health and the importance of addressing them in and with communities, contributing to more effective strategies for improving health and health care for underserved individuals, communities, and populations. Recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to develop a high-level framework for such health professional education. A Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health also puts forth a conceptual model for the framework's use with the goal of helping stakeholder groups envision ways in which organizations, education, and communities can come together to address health inequalities.
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.
Concluding a two-year review and revision process supported by the American Cancer Society and conducted by an expert panel of health education professionals, this second edition of the National Health Education Standards is the foremost reference in establishing, promoting, and supporting health-enhancing behaviors for students in all grade levels. These guidelines and standards provide a framework for teachers, administrators, and policy makers in designing or selecting curricula, allocating instructional resources, and assessing student achievement and progress; provide students, families, and communities with concrete expectations for health education; and advocate for quality health education in schools, including primary cancer prevention for children and youth.
This book brings to life best practices of Human Simulation; maximizing the Standardized Patient (SP) methodology that has played a major role in health professions learning and assessment since the 1960s. Each chapter reflects the Association of SP Educators Standards of Best Practices (SOBPs) and provides guidance for implementation. Multiple insights are offered through embedded interviews with international experts to provide examples illustrating successful strategies. The Human Simulation Continuum Model, a practical and theoretical framework, is introduced to guide educators in decision-making processes associated with the full range of human simulation. The Continuum Model spans improvisations, structured role-play, embedded participants, and simulated-standardized patients. This book also provides the full “how-to” for SP methodology covering topics including; case/scenario development, creating training material, training techniques for case portrayal, training communication and feedback skills, GTA/MUTA/PTA training, SP program administration and professional development for SP Educators. A pragmatic, user-friendly addition to the Comprehensive Healthcare Simulation series, Implementing Best Practices in Standardized Patient Methodology is the first book framed by the ASPE SOBPs, embracing best practices in human simulation and marshaling the vast expertise of a myriad of SP Educators.
This framework emphasizes health literacy for students, i.e., development of the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed for healthy living. The framework defines four unifying ideas of health literacy that serve as central themes for all content areas and grade levels: (1) acceptance of personal responsibility for lifelong health; (2) respect for and promotion of the health of others; (3) an understanding of the process of growth and development; (4) informed use of health-related information, products, and services; and (5) promotion of health education supported by a comprehensive school health system and sustained by the collaborative efforts of school, family, and community. Seven chapters are organized as follows: (1) "The Vision: Health Literacy, Healthy Schools, Healthy People"; (2) Developing Health Literacy in the Classroom and in the School"; (3) "Health Education"; (4) "Beyond Health Education"; (5) "Assessment of Health Literacy"; (6) "Criteria for Evaluating Instructional Resources"; and (7) "Integration with Other Disciplines." Selected Education Code sections, a paper titled "Integrated Services Center Links School, Family and Community" (Andrea Zetlin and Robert Bilovsky), Project Teach recommendations on preservice teacher training in health education, and a list of publications available from the California Department of Education are appended. (LL)
Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.
In a joint effort between the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, this books attempts to bridge the knowledge/awareness divide separating health care professionals from their potential partners in systems engineering and related disciplines. The goal of this partnership is to transform the U.S. health care sector from an underperforming conglomerate of independent entities (individual practitioners, small group practices, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, community health centers et. al.) into a high performance "system" in which every participating unit recognizes its dependence and influence on every other unit. By providing both a framework and action plan for a systems approach to health care delivery based on a partnership between engineers and health care professionals, Building a Better Delivery System describes opportunities and challenges to harness the power of systems-engineering tools, information technologies and complementary knowledge in social sciences, cognitive sciences and business/management to advance the U.S. health care system.
Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health was released in September 2019, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. Improving social conditions remains critical to improving health outcomes, and integrating social care into health care delivery is more relevant than ever in the context of the pandemic and increased strains placed on the U.S. health care system. The report and its related products ultimately aim to help improve health and health equity, during COVID-19 and beyond. The consistent and compelling evidence on how social determinants shape health has led to a growing recognition throughout the health care sector that improving health and health equity is likely to depend â€" at least in part â€" on mitigating adverse social determinants. This recognition has been bolstered by a shift in the health care sector towards value-based payment, which incentivizes improved health outcomes for persons and populations rather than service delivery alone. The combined result of these changes has been a growing emphasis on health care systems addressing patients' social risk factors and social needs with the aim of improving health outcomes. This may involve health care systems linking individual patients with government and community social services, but important questions need to be answered about when and how health care systems should integrate social care into their practices and what kinds of infrastructure are required to facilitate such activities. Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health examines the potential for integrating services addressing social needs and the social determinants of health into the delivery of health care to achieve better health outcomes. This report assesses approaches to social care integration currently being taken by health care providers and systems, and new or emerging approaches and opportunities; current roles in such integration by different disciplines and organizations, and new or emerging roles and types of providers; and current and emerging efforts to design health care systems to improve the nation's health and reduce health inequities.
