This report is one of five volumes providing detailed information on the QA Tools, RAND's comprehensive, clinically based system for assessing quality of care for children and adults. The QA Tools indicators encompass screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up in 46 clinical areas and cover a variety of modes of providing care, including history, physical examination, laboratory study, medication, and other interventions and contacts. Development of each indicator was based on the ratings of a panel of experts in the relevant fields and on a focused review of the scientific literature, which is clearly documented for each clinical condition. This volume focuses on indicators for care of cardiopulmonary conditions. Each chapter summarizes the results of the literature review for a particular condition, provides RAND staff's recommended indicators based on that review, and notes the level of scientific evidence supporting each indicator along with the relevant citations. In addition, this work details the process by which the expert panel evaluated the indicators and the final disposition of each indicator. Clinical conditions covered in this volume are: Asthma, atrial fibrillation, cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cigarette counseling, community-acquired pneumonia, coronary artery disease, heart failure, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, upper respiratory infections. Other RAND Health titles on the QA Tools system focus on indicators for general medicine, oncology and HIV, children and adolescents, and women.

Cardiac arrest can strike a seemingly healthy individual of any age, race, ethnicity, or gender at any time in any location, often without warning. Cardiac arrest is the third leading cause of death in the United States, following cancer and heart disease. Four out of five cardiac arrests occur in the home, and more than 90 percent of individuals with cardiac arrest die before reaching the hospital. First and foremost, cardiac arrest treatment is a community issue - local resources and personnel must provide appropriate, high-quality care to save the life of a community member. Time between onset of arrest and provision of care is fundamental, and shortening this time is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of death and disability from cardiac arrest. Specific actions can be implemented now to decrease this time, and recent advances in science could lead to new discoveries in the causes of, and treatments for, cardiac arrest. However, specific barriers must first be addressed. Strategies to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival examines the complete system of response to cardiac arrest in the United States and identifies opportunities within existing and new treatments, strategies, and research that promise to improve the survival and recovery of patients. The recommendations of Strategies to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival provide high-priority actions to advance the field as a whole. This report will help citizens, government agencies, and private industry to improve health outcomes from sudden cardiac arrest across the United States.

This report is one of a series of volumes describing the QA Tools, a comprehensive, clinically based system for assessing care for children and adults. The quality indicators that comprise these Tools cover 46 clinical areas and all 4 functions of medicine-screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. The indicators also cover a variety of modes of providing care, including history, physical examination, laboratory study, medication, and other interventions and contacts. Development of each indicator was based on a review of the literature. Each volume documents the literature on which the indicators were based, explains how the clinical areas and indicators were selected, and describes what is included in the overall system. The QA Tools were developed with funding from public and private sponsors-the Health Care Financing Administration, the Agency for Health care Research and Quality, the California Health Care Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

There are growing questions regarding the safety, quality, risk management, and costs of PCC teams, their training and preparedness, and their implications on the welfare of patients and families. This innovative book, authored by an international authorship, will highlight the best practices in improving survival while paving a roadmap for the expected changes in the next 10 years as healthcare undergoes major transformation and reform. An invited group of experts in the field will participate in this project to provide the timeliest and informative approaches to how to deal with this global health challenge. The book will be indispensable to all who treat pediatric cardiac disease and will provide important information about managing the risk of patients with pediatric and congenital cardiac disease in the three domains of: the analysis of outcomes, the improvement of quality, and the safety of patients.

A modern definition of health goes beyond the biological dimension to encompass human functionality and well-being. Quality of life is one of the most popular health-related concepts and simultaneously reflects several dimensions of individual health. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is taken to include physical, psychological, and social aspects of positive well-being as well as negative effects of illness, treatment, and infirmity. Quality of life outcomes are now considered an important indicator of the success of both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. In this book, recognized experts discuss the findings of various studies, including their own, regarding HRQoL in patients with cardiovascular diseases. The impact of the newest forms of medical treatment on well-being is considered in patients with arterial hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, arrhythmias, and stroke as well as in patients who have undergone interventional procedures or have implantable cardiac devices. By summarizing established facts and presenting new data, this book will be an invaluable source of information for all practitioners in the field.

This edition addresses the cost effectiveness of interventions that educate and motivate patients to assume personal responsibility for long-term disease prevention.

Reviews the best therapies and surgical techniques available to provide quality care for the elderly cardiac patient and of those areas that require further research. The authors detail preventive therapies and the cardiovascular syndromes that disproportionately afflict the older individual, including arrhythmias (particularly atrial fibrillation), syncope, heart failure (particularly diastolic heart failure), and ischemic heart disease. They also delineate the surgical management of the heart patient with discussions of postoperative management and its complications and of specific surgical procedures such as coronary artery bypass grafting, valve surgery, pacemaker and defibibrillators, and surgical management of heart failure.