After the publication of the revised edition, therapeutic drugs described in “Future Treatment”
were approved and important evidence for pharmacologic therapy and nonpharmacologic …

Public report cards and confidential, collaborative peer education represent distinctly
different approaches to cardiac surgery quality assessment and improvement. This review …

Whenever possible, the recommendations listed in this document are evidence based.
Articles reviewed in this guideline revision covered evidence from the past 10 years through …

BACKGROUND: Data used for evaluating quality of medical care need to be of high
reliability to ensure valid quality assessment and benchmarking. The American College of …

The US health care system is in crisis. At stake are the quality of care for millions of
Americans and the financial well-being of individuals and employers squeezed by …

Context Perioperative blood transfusions are costly and have safety concerns. As a result,
there have been multiple initiatives to reduce transfusion use. However, the degree to which …

Today's preoccupation with cost shifting and cost reduction undermines physicians and
patients. Instead, health care reform must focus on improving health and health care value …

Objective: To assess the performance of the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk
Evaluation (EuroSCORE) when applied in a North American cardiac surgical population …

Background: It is not known whether rigorous intraoperative glycemic control reduces death
and morbidity in cardiac surgery patients. Objective: To compare outcomes of intensive …

Background. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons National Adult Cardiac Database is the
largest voluntary clinical database in medicine. Using this database we examined changes …