CLINICAL
NEWS JOURNAL WRAP
Kim Eagle, MD, and the editors of ACC.org, present relevant
articles taken from various journals.
Inconsistent Improvements in
Quality of Outpatient Care May be
Hazardous to Public Health
Despite national improvement efforts,
the clinical quality of outpatient care
has not progressed consistently in
the past decade, and the lack of solid
improvement may have resulted in
deficits of care that pose serious
hazards to the health of the American
public, according to a study published
Oct. 17 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
David M. Levine, MD, MA, and
colleagues, analyzed temporal trends
from 2002 to 2013 using quality measures constructed from the
Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
and identified nine clinical quality
composites by which to measure
improvement.
Results showed that four clinical
quality composites improved: recommended medical treatment (from 36%
to 42%), recommended counseling
(from 43% to 50%), recommended
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cancer screening (from 73% to 75%)
and avoidance of inappropriate cancer
screening (from 47% to 51%). Two
clinical quality composites worsened:
avoidance of inappropriate medical
treatments (from 92% to 89%) and
avoidance of inappropriate antibiotic
use (from 50% to 44%). Three clinical
quality measures were unchanged:
recommended diagnostic and preventive testing (76%), recommended
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