Implementing Clinical Practice Guidelines

This book explains how to implement clinical practice guidelines effectively in order to help guideline users at any level get their job done. It offers a systematic approach to guideline implementation based on understanding what clinical guidelines are, how they work, and how implementation techniques that have proved effective in other areas can be used to help implement them. The book includes real case scenarios of guidelines implementation, and questions and answers throughout the text regarding: * Solving clinical problems using clinical algorithms* Developing and constructing practical guidelines* Tailoring guidelines* Implementing clinical practice guidelines* Evaluating and monitoring clinical practice guidelines

Table of Contents:
About the Authors. Foreword. Preface. Introduction. Solving Clinical Problems Using Clinical Algorithms (C. Margolis). Developing and Constructing Practical Guidelines (C. Margolis). Building in the Evidence (R. Fletcher). Disseminating and Learning to Use Guidelines (C. Margolis). Tailoring Guidelines (C. Margolis). Putting Clinical Guidelines into Practice (S. Cretin). Evaluating and Monitoring Clinical Practice Guidelines (S. Cretin). Implementing a Guideline Program: Two Case Studies. Case 1: Planning and Running a Clinical Practice Guidelines Program in a Group--Model health Maintenance Organization: A Personal Account (D. Tolsma & C. Gardner). Case 2: Establishing and Running a Clinical Practice Guideline Program at Children's Hospital, Boston (R. Grossman, et al.). Appendix A. The Transient Ischemic Attack Files: An Implementation Case Study. Appendix B. Answers to Chapter Questions and Solutions to Chapter Problems and Exercises. Index.

About the Author :
CARMI Z. MARGOLIS, is professor of pediatrics and vice dean for medical education at Ben--Gurion University of the Negev in Beer--Sheva, Israel. While serving as founding chairman of the Division of Health in the Community, Dr. Margolis developed the clinical algorithms format later proposed as the basis for an international standard. He is the author of Common Pediatric Problems: An Algorithm Approach and The Pediatric Problem Oriented Record, both groundbreaking books in medical problem solving. SHAN CRETIN, is president of Shan Cretin & Associates in Santa Monica, California, resident consultant with the RAND Corporation, and an adjunct professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Dr. Cretin has published numerous papers on the cost--effectiveness of preventative and curative care, quality assessment and improvement methods, and the organization and financing of care in the United States and China.