Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients." The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of the patient, and the best available scientific information to guide decision-making about clinical management. The term was originally used to describe an approach to teaching the practice of medicine and improving decisions by individual physicians about individual patients.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an executive non-departmental public body, in England, of the Department of Health and Social Care, that publishes guidelines in four areas:
A medical guideline is a document with the aim of guiding decisions and criteria regarding diagnosis, management, and treatment in specific areas of healthcare. Such documents have been in use for thousands of years during the entire history of medicine. However, in contrast to previous approaches, which were often based on tradition or authority, modern medical guidelines are based on an examination of current evidence within the paradigm of evidence-based medicine. They usually include summarized consensus statements on best practice in healthcare. A healthcare provider is obliged to know the medical guidelines of their profession, and has to decide whether to follow the recommendations of a guideline for an individual treatment.
Clinical governance is a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care within the National Health Service (NHS) and private sector health care. Clinical governance became important in health care after the Bristol heart scandal in 1995, during which an anaesthetist, Dr Stephen Bolsin, exposed the high mortality rate for paediatric cardiac surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. It was originally elaborated within the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS), and its most widely cited formal definition describes it as:
A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continually improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.
Clinical audit is a process that has been defined as a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change
A Patient Safety Organization (PSO) is a group, institution, or association that improves medical care by reducing medical errors. Common functions of patient safety organizations are data collection, analysis, reporting, education, funding, and advocacy. A PSO differs from a Federally designed Patient Safety Organization (PSO), which provides health care providers in the U.S. privilege and confidentiality protections for efforts to improve patient safety and the quality of patient care delivery
The International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services (HPH) is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that was initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1988. It is also known simply as HPH, or "Health Promoting Hospitals." HPH is based on the settings approach to health promotion philosophy of the WHO as outlined in the WHO Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. The organization's main aim is to improve the health gain of hospitals and health services by a bundle of strategies targeting patients, staff, and the community.
Health services research (HSR) became a burgeoning field in North America in the 1960s, when scientific information and policy deliberation began to coalesce. Sometimes also referred to as health systems research or health policy and systems research (HPSR), HSR is a multidisciplinary scientific field that examines how people get access to health care practitioners and health care services, how much care costs, and what happens to patients as a result of this care. HSR utilizes all qualitative and quantitative methods across the board to ask questions of the healthcare system. It focuses on performance, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of health care services as they relate to health problems of individuals and populations, as well as health care systems and addresses wide-ranging topics of structure, processes, and organization of health care services; their use and people's access to services; efficiency and effectiveness of health care services; the quality of healthcare services and its relationship to health status, and; the uses of medical knowledge.
The German Agency for Quality in Medicine (AEZQ) - in German "Ärztliches Zentrum für Qualität in der Medizin (ÄZQ)", established in 1995 and located in Berlin, co-ordinates healthcare quality programmes with special focus on evidence-based medicine, medical guidelines, patient empowerment, patient safety programs, and quality management.
Zeitschrift für Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualität im Gesundheitswesen is a bilingual German and English language peer-reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier Germany. It was established in 1904 as the Zeitschrift für ärztliche Fortbildung by Ernst von Bergmann. ZEFQ is the organ of various organisations working in the fields of evidence-based medicine, patient empowerment, patient safety, and quality management in healthcare:. Among these are:
Günter Ollenschläger is a German physician, medical editor, and á former professor of internal medicine and clinical decision making at the University of Cologne, Faculty of Medicine.
The German Network for Evidence based Medicine is a scientific nonprofit association of individuals and institutions promoting the quality of patient care and disease prevention by applying the principles of evidence-based healthcare (EbHC) - in special dentistry (EbD), medicine (EbM), nursing (EbN), pharmacy, physiotherapy - in the countries of German language.
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) is an independent non-profit, non-governmental professional association that works to advance the prevention, diagnosis and management of diseases of the heart and blood vessels, and improve scientific understanding of the heart and vascular system. This is done by:
The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) is a collaboration between the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness at University College London (UCL). The NCCMH aims to promote the role of evidence synthesis in making informed judgments about healthcare policy. The NCCMH has a history of developing guidelines, conducting systematic reviews and developing implementation guidance for commissioners and service providers. Formed in 2001, on 1 April 2016 a new guideline development centre, the National Guideline Alliance, based at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists took over the clinical guideline programme that had been run by NCCMH.
Workplace Strategy is the dynamic alignment of an organization's work patterns with the work environment to enable peak performance and reduce costs.
The Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of health research Network is an international initiative aimed at promoting transparent and accurate reporting of health research studies to enhance the value and reliability of medical research literature. The EQUATOR Network was established with the goals of raising awareness of the importance of good reporting of research, assisting in the development, dissemination and implementation of reporting guidelines for different types of study designs, monitoring the status of the quality of reporting of research studies in the health sciences literature, and conducting research relating to issues that impact the quality of reporting of health research studies. The Network acts as an "umbrella" organisation, bringing together developers of reporting guidelines, medical journal editors and peer reviewers, research funding bodies, and other key stakeholders with a mutual interest in improving the quality of research publications and research itself. The EQUATOR Network comprises four centres at the University of Oxford, Bond University, Paris Descartes University, and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Evidence-based dentistry (EBD) is the dental part of the more general movement toward evidence-based medicine and other evidence-based practices. The pervasive access to information on the internet includes different aspects of dentistry for both the dentists and patients. This has created a need to ensure that evidence referenced to are valid, reliable and of good quality.
The Improvement Science Research Network (ISRN) is a research network for academics and physicians who are conducting studies in the new medical field of improvement science.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) is the national healthcare improvement organisation for Scotland. It is a public body which is part of the Scottish National Health Service, created in April 2011.
There are more than 100 different titles that are used as another name to Transfusion Practitioner (TP). The most common titles used include Transfusion Practitioner, Haemovigilance Officer, Transfusion Safety Officer, Transfusion Nurse, Patient Blood Management (PBM) Practitioner, and PBM Nurse.
