The National Roundtable on Health Care Quality was established in 1995 by the Institute of Medicine. The Roundtable consists of experts formally appointed through procedures of the National Research Council (NRC) who represent both public and private-sector perspectives and appropriate areas of substantive expertise (not organizations). From the public sector, heads of appropriate Federal agencies serve. It offers a unique, nonadversarial environment to explore ongoing rapid changes in the medical marketplace and the implications of these changes for the quality of health and health care in this nation. The Roundtable has a liaison panel focused on quality of care in managed care organizations. The Roundtable convenes nationally prominent representatives of the private and public sector (regional, state and federal), academia, patients, and the health media to analyze unfolding issues concerning quality, to hold workshops and commission papers on significant topics, and when appropriate, to produce periodic statements for the nation on quality of care matters. By providing a structured opportunity for regular communication and interaction, the Roundtable fosters candid discussion among individuals who represent various sides of a given issue.

The book provides a thorough review of the U.S. health care system, including its organization and financing, care delivery, recent reforms, and an evaluation of the system's performance.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Health care for the elderly American is among our nation's more pressing social issues. Our society wishes to ensure quality health care for all older people, but there is growing concern about our ability to maintain and improve quality in the face of efforts to contain health care costs. Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance answers the U.S. Congress' call for the Institute of Medicine to design a strategic plan for assessing and assuring the quality of medical care for the elderly. This book presents a proposed strategic plan for improving quality assurance in the Medicare program, along with steps and timetables for implementing the plan by the year 2000 and the 10 recommendations for action by Congress. The book explores quality of careâ€"how it is defined, measured, and improvedâ€"and reviews different types of quality problems. Major issues that affect approaches to assessing and assuring quality are examined. Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance will be immediately useful to a wide audience, including policymakers, health administrators, individual providers, specialists in issues of the older American, researchers, educators, and students.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs that provide benefits based on disability: the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. This report analyzes health care utilizations as they relate to impairment severity and SSA's definition of disability. Health Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination identifies types of utilizations that might be good proxies for "listing-level" severity; that is, what represents an impairment, or combination of impairments, that are severe enough to prevent a person from doing any gainful activity, regardless of age, education, or work experience.