A strong primary health care system is essential to provide effective and efficient health care
in both resource-rich and resource-poor countries. Although a direct link has not been …

The article presents a literary review of available evidence for quality indicators (QI) that can
be used to assess palliative care and end-of-life care in vulnerable elders (VE). The review …

ContextComparisons of outcomes between patients treated and untreated in observational
studies may be biased due to differences in patient prognosis between groups, often …

Objective: We sought to test whether variations across regions in end-of-life (EOL) treatment
intensity are associated with regional differences in patient preferences for EOL care …

A large literature in medicine documents variation across areas in the use of surgical
treatments that is unrelated to outcomes. Observers of this phenomenon have invoked “flat …

ContextAlthough there is now substantial evidence that pulmonary artery (PA)
catheterization does not reduce mortality in critically ill patients, it is unknown whether …

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are by far the major cause of death in lower-middle,
upper-middle, and high-income countries; by 2015, they will also be the leading cause of …

A large, widening gap exists between the incomes of primary care physicians and those of
many specialists. This disparity is important because noncompetitive primary care incomes …

Primary care is essential to the effective and efficient functioning of health care delivery
systems, yet there is an impending crisis in the field due in part to a dysfunctional payment …

Objectives: We studied the use of echocardiography among Medicare beneficiaries between
1999 and 2004 to determine the rate of growth in these services and evaluate the drivers of …