4.2: Best Practices

Develop and communicate the proven "best practices".

Other Information:

Many health policy reformers argue that establishing and encouraging the "best practices" would assure that the patient receives the most effective treatments, while avoiding the use of unnecessary, ineffective and potentially harmful care. Physicians use different approaches to heal patients. They tend to follow the medical practices of their peers in their geographic region rather than the treatments shown to be the most effective in published medical research. As a result, the practice and cost of medicine varies widely throughout the U.S. and often bares little relationship to better results. Documented "best practices" have been established through medical research for some medical conditions. Communicating these approaches more widely could help encourage physicians to follow them. Once best practices are known, encouraging providers to follow them would improve patient care and reduce wasteful health care.

Stakeholder(s):

• Physicians

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

Content