Implementing Clinical Guidelines: Challenges for Hospitals
<p>Clinical care guidelines help providers practice evidence-based medicine and reduce variability in the quality of care they deliver. Nonetheless, guideline adoption to date has been slow and uneven. What gets in the way of adopting clinical guidelines? And how do successful hospitals manage to do it?<Br><br>In a <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=22841&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D378879%26%23doc378879">new study</a> supported by The Commonwealth Fund and the Brain Trauma Foundation, Artemis March, Ph.D., M.B.A., examines the challenges of translating guidelines for management of severe brain injury into practice--and shows how some hospital trauma centers have overcome them. Every year, 50,000 people die from traumatic brain injury and tens of thousands more are neurologically disabled, with costs estimated to run as high as $48 billion.<br><br>Based on case studies and interviews with physicians, nurses, policymakers, and others, the report identifies barriers to compliance with brain injury guidelines, describes how three trauma centers lowered or overcame such barriers, and identifies common threads in their approaches.</p>
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2006/jun/implementing-clinical-guidelines--challenges-for-hospitals