Quality care results from comparing, analyzing data

AMA Leader Commentary. By Edward L. Langston, MD, Aug. 6, 2007.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

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A message to all physicians from Edward L. Langston, MD, chair of the AMA Board of Trustees.

Elizabeth Bradley, PhD, director of the Health Management program at Yale University School of Public Health, wrote, "Physicians, in particular, like data, and if one can assure them the data are valid, they will respond"

It seems to me that, from the earliest training through continuing patient care experiences in their practices, physicians have assumed they were always providing quality health care services. As residents, it was assumed and reinforced on a daily basis that the techniques and depth of care, rendered as taught by the teaching faculty, were consistent with the then- current highest quality care accepted by the specialty in which they were being trained.

And why not? In an accredited residency program, one could reasonably assume the training met the highest standards of quality care. We accepted and understood that, within those standards of high quality care, alternative techniques, therapeutics and methodology that also met the highest standard of quality health care were permitted and encouraged.

As physicians matured in their practices and medical science pursued newer and better treatment techniques and treatment modalities, newer data would suggest improved modes of therapy that needed to be learned and adopted. Those very same data would often dispel old science and long-held beliefs; previously learned therapies or modalities of treatment needed to be challenged and changed to address a newer and clearer understanding of the science of human physiology, disease process and human pharmacology.