The Joint Commission journal on quality improvement
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Jt Comm J Qual Improv · Aug 1993
Case ReportsDecision making with pregnant patients: a policy born of experience.
One hospital has developed an institutional policy to guide decision making between physicians and pregnant patients. Read the policy and a description of how it was developed by the ethics committee at the George Washington University Hospital.
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Jt Comm J Qual Improv · Aug 1993
Use of practice parameters as standards of care and in health care reform: a view from the American Medical Association.
Guidelines that are standards of care could limit the creative initiatives to find ways of caring for patients which do not conform to traditional medical practice but result in good outcomes. Physicians would likely feel hemmed in by guidelines that constitute an express legal standard of care and would be afraid to deviate from them except under the auspices of carefully controlled research protocols.