Discussion Board Assignment

1. Definitions of the quality of medical care are no longer left to clinicians who decide for themselves what technical performance constitutes "good care." Name one other dimension of quality care and why is it important?

2. What is the primary method of continuous quality improvement (CQI) in health care, and what is its underlying premise?

3. Since an ever-increasing amount of research is funded by commercial companies, what is your opinion on a requirement for authors of scientific studies who receive income from these companies to disclose funding sources in their scientific publications?

Future of Health Care Questions:

4. Today's not-for-profit hospitals and health systems are commonly multi-billion dollar tax-exempt organizations. What is your position on the new federal scrutiny upon, and reporting requirements for justifying the charitable missions of not-for-profit hospitals and health systems?

5. In 1999, the Institute of medicine report, To Err is Human, generated a brief flurry of concerns about avoidable hospital deaths. While progress has been made in addressing system errors and deficiencies, it remains inconsistent across the nation's hospitals. Fourteen years after this report, is it time for the professions, payers and the public to demand corrections of system problems in an accountable, transparent and publicly disclosed manner? What form can or should these demands take?