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.
How safe is our food supply? Each year the media report what appears to be growing concern related to illness caused by the food consumed by Americans. These food borne illnesses are caused by pathogenic microorganisms, pesticide residues, and food additives. Recent actions taken at the federal, state, and local levels in response to the increase in reported incidences of food borne illnesses point to the need to evaluate the food safety system in the United States. This book assesses the effectiveness of the current food safety system and provides recommendations on changes needed to ensure an effective science-based food safety system. Ensuring Safe Food discusses such important issues as: What are the primary hazards associated with the food supply? What gaps exist in the current system for ensuring a safe food supply? What effects do trends in food consumption have on food safety? What is the impact of food preparation and handling practices in the home, in food services, or in production operations on the risk of food borne illnesses? What organizational changes in responsibility or oversight could be made to increase the effectiveness of the food safety system in the United States? Current concerns associated with microbiological, chemical, and physical hazards in the food supply are discussed. The book also considers how changes in technology and food processing might introduce new risks. Recommendations are made on steps for developing a coordinated, unified system for food safety. The book also highlights areas that need additional study. Ensuring Safe Food will be important for policymakers, food trade professionals, food producers, food processors, food researchers, public health professionals, and consumers.
By bringing together leading experts on quality assurance in higher education from seven countries (from Europe, the USA and South Africa), this volume intends to go several steps further than most publications on the same subject. Containing comprehensive discussion of the most relevant trends in quality assurance regulation, translation and transformation, researchers and policy makers will find an engaged, academic reflection on how quality assurance is embedded in higher education and in a dynamic way to assess its impacts and potential improvements.
Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. High-quality laws promote national welfare and growth, while badly designed laws hinder growth, harm the environment and put the health of citizens at risk. This report analyses practices to improve the quality of laws ...
As more people live longer, the need for quality long-term care for the elderly will increase dramatically. This volume examines the current system of nursing home regulations, and proposes an overhaul to better provide for those confined to such facilities. It determines the need for regulations, and concludes that the present regulatory system is inadequate, stating that what is needed is not more regulation, but better regulation. This long-anticipated study provides a wealth of useful background information, in-depth study, and discussion for nursing home administrators, students, and teachers in the health care field; professionals involved in caring for the elderly; and geriatric specialists.
In the wake of publicity and congressional attention to drug safety issues, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested the Institute of Medicine assess the drug safety system. The committee reported that a lack of clear regulatory authority, chronic underfunding, organizational problems, and a scarcity of post-approval data about drugs' risks and benefits have hampered the FDA's ability to evaluate and address the safety of prescription drugs after they have reached the market. Noting that resources and therefore efforts to monitor medications' riskâ€"benefit profiles taper off after approval, The Future of Drug Safety offers a broad set of recommendations to ensure that consideration of safety extends from before product approval through the entire time the product is marketed and used.
Regulation and Markets provides the up to date, integrated analysis of regulatory policies and the administrative process that is needed in today's field of regulation economics. The book takes a modern perspective, using the tools of industrial organization and game theory. It is the only unified treatment of the field and combines theoretical models with consideration of public policy issues in the areas of antitrust, price regulation, environmental regulation, product quality, and workplace safety. The discussion considers both the welfare effects of regulation and the institutional aspects of the administrative regulatory process. Developments in the fields of law and political science have been integrated in a rigorous manner into the economic framework.Sections of the book address administrative process and market allocation, competition and pricing under increasing returns to scale, administrative regulation of markets, and antitrust enforcement. The conclusion evaluates regulatory policy and deregulation. Extensive literature citations throughout enhance the books value as a reference.
The 2015 edition of ISO 9001 has been modernized to update terminology and content to meet current and anticipated user needs. The major emphasis of ISO 9001:2015 is still consistent provision of products and services that meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. This book explains the meaning and intent of the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 and discusses the requirements as they relate to each of the product categories. Where appropriate, it includes an elaboration of why the requirements are important. It also includes typical audit-type questions that an organization may consider to assess conformity to internal needs and ISO 9001 requirements. Recommendations for implementation are also included. This book addresses the needs of: Users and organizations seeking a general understanding of the contents of ISO 9001:2015 Users and organizations desiring guidance to ensure their ISO 9001:2015 QMS meets the new version requirements Users and organizations considering the use of ISO 9001:2015 as a foundation for the development of a comprehensive QMS Educators who require a textbook to accompany a training class or course on ISO 9001:2015 Auditors who desire to increase their level of auditing competence Authors Cianfrani and West, members of the expert group that developed ISO 9001:2015, strive to provide a context for all requirements to enable you to develop and deploy processes that will strengthen your QMS. Getting or retaining a certificate is not the real objective. Satisfied customers and organizational sustainability should be primary objectives for the organization.
