BiblioVault - Books about Evidence-Based Medicine

front cover of Factors Affecting Physician Professional Satisfaction and Their Implications for Patient Care, Health Systems, and Health Policy

Factors Affecting Physician Professional Satisfaction and Their Implications for Patient Care, Health Systems, and Health Policy

Mark W. Friedberg

RAND Corporation, 2013

The American Medical Association asked RAND Health to characterize the factors that affect physician professional satisfaction. RAND researchers sought to identify high-priority determinants of professional satisfaction by gathering data from 30 physician practices in six states, using a combination of surveys and semistructured interviews. This report presents the results of the subsequent analysis.

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Iatrogenicity

Causes and Consequences of Iatrogenesis in Cardiovascular Medicine

Gussak, Ihor B

Rutgers University Press, 2017

Iatrogenesis is the occurrence of untoward effects resulting from actions of health care providers, including medical errors, medical malpractice, practicing beyond one’s expertise, adverse effects of medication, unnecessary treatment, inappropriate screenings, and surgical errors. This is a huge public health issue: tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths are attributed to iatrogenic causes each year in the U.S., and vulnerable populations such as the elderly and minorities are particularly susceptible.

Edited by two renowned cardiology experts, Iatrogenicity: Causes and Consequences of Iatrogenesis in Cardiovascular Medicine addresses both the iatrogenicity that arises with cardiovascular interventions, as well as non-cardiovascular interventions that result in adverse consequences on the cardiovascular system. The book aims to achieve three things: to summarize the available information on this topic in a single high-yield volume; to highlight the human and financial cost of iatrogenesis; and to describe and propose potential interventions to ameliorate the effects of iatrogenesis. This accessible book is a practical reference for any practicing physician who sees patients with cardiovascular issues. .

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Measuring the Quality of Care for Psychological Health Conditions in the Military Health System

Candidate Quality Measures for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder

Kimberly A. Hepner

RAND Corporation, 2015

To inform improvements to the quality of care delivered by the military health system for posttraumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder, researchers developed a framework and identified, developed, and described a candidate set of measures for monitoring, assessing, and improving the quality of care. This document describes their research approach and the measure sets that they identified.

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Observation and Experiment

An Introduction to Causal Inference

Paul R. Rosenbaum

Harvard University Press, 2017

A daily glass of wine prolongs life—yet alcohol can cause life-threatening cancer. Some say raising the minimum wage will decrease inequality while others say it increases unemployment. Scientists once confidently claimed that hormone replacement therapy reduced the risk of heart disease but now they equally confidently claim it raises that risk. What should we make of this endless barrage of conflicting claims?

Observation and Experiment is an introduction to causal inference by one of the field’s leading scholars. An award-winning professor at Wharton, Paul Rosenbaum explains key concepts and methods through lively examples that make abstract principles accessible. He draws his examples from clinical medicine, economics, public health, epidemiology, clinical psychology, and psychiatry to explain how randomized control trials are conceived and designed, how they differ from observational studies, and what techniques are available to mitigate their bias.

“Carefully and precisely written…reflecting superb statistical understanding, all communicated with the skill of a master teacher.”
—Stephen M. Stigler, author of The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom

“An excellent introduction…Well-written and thoughtful…from one of causal inference’s noted experts.”
—Journal of the American Statistical Association

“Rosenbaum is a gifted expositor…an outstanding introduction to the topic for anyone who is interested in understanding the basic ideas and approaches to causal inference.”
—Psychometrika

“A very valuable contribution…Highly recommended.”
—International Statistical Review

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Quality of Care for PTSD and Depression in the Military Health System

Phase I Report

Kimberly A. Hepner

RAND Corporation, 2016

Understanding the current quality of care for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression delivered to service members is an important step toward improving care across the Military Health System (MHS). T.his report describes the characteristics of active-component service members who received care for PTSD or depression through the MHS and assesses the quality of care received using quality measures derived from administrative data

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Racing to a Cure

A Cancer Victim Refuses Chemotherapy and Finds Tomorrow's Cures in Today's Scientific Laboratories

Neil Ruzic

University of Illinois Press, 2003

Racing to a Cure is not a cancer memoir. It is a cancer cure memoir. In 1998 Neil Ruzic was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma, the deadliest cancer of the lymph system, whose spread is reaching epidemic levels in the U.S. and Europe. Instead of following recommended courses of chemotherapy and radiation, he took control of his treatment by investigating cures being developed in the nation's cancer-research laboratories.

Although chemotherapy harms the immune system and is increasingly demonstrated to be an ineffective long-term cure for the vast majority of cancers, it remains the standard treatment for most cancer patients. Ruzic, a former scientific magazine publisher and originator of a science center, refused to accept this status quo, and instead plunged into the world of cutting-edge treatments, exploring the frontiers of cancer science with revolutionary results.

Ruzic went on the offensive: visiting scores of laboratories, gathering information, talking to researchers, and effectively becoming his own patient-care advocate. This book presents his findings. A scathing critique of the chemotherapy culture as well as unscientific "alternative" therapies, the book endorses state-of-the-art molecularly based technologies, making it an illuminating and necessary read for anyone interested in cancer research, especially patients and their families and physicians.

Neil Ruzic was expected to die within two years of his initial diagnosis. Five years later he has been declared cancer-free and considers himself cured.

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Recommended Standards for Delivering High-Quality Care to Veterans with Invisible Wounds

Carrie M. Farmer

RAND Corporation, 2022

The authors identified ten standards for the delivery of high-quality care for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, substance use disorders, and mild traumatic brain injury. They also provide considerations for implementing and disseminating these standards as a first step to improve access to high-quality care for veterans with invisible wounds.

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Redefining Health Care Systems

Robert H. Brook

RAND Corporation, 2015

This book provides a scientific and personal perspective on health services research over the last half-century. Its essays and commentaries suggest how that science base, constructed over decades of sustained effort, can stimulate innovative thinking about ways to make health care systems safer, more efficient, more cost-effective, and more patient-centered.

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Research on Human Subjects

Problems of Social Control in Medical Experimentation

Bernard Barber

Russell Sage Foundation, 1973

How are human subjects treated in biomedical research? What are the expressed standards and self-reported behavior of biomedical researchers in regard to what has sometimes been called their "animal of necessity"? What are some of the determinants of the "strict" and "permissive" patterns which describe the standards and behavior of biomedical researchers? These are the important questions asked and answered in Research on Human Subjects. It is a book based on four years of intensive research. Two studies were completed, one on a nationally representative sample of biomedical research institutions, a second on a sample of 350 researchers who actually use human subjects. In their chapters on "the dilemma of science and therapy," the authors look at the tension between the values of humane therapy and discovery in science. They show that the significant minority of researchers who are "permissive" on the issues of informed consent and a favorable risk-benefit ratio are more likely to be those who are "relative failures" in pursuing the science value. Research on Human Subjects also documents the inadequate training that biomedical researchers get in the ethics of research on human subjects not only in medical schools but in their postgraduate training as well. The medical schools pay relatively more attention to the scientific training of their students than they do to the ethical training that should be its essential complement. The local peer review groups that screen research on human subjects in the institutions where it is carried on are another central focus of attention of the research and analysis reported in this book. The peer review groups do a fairly good job but, the authors show, there are various conditions of their relative efficacy which are not met by review groups in many important research institutions. The medical school review groups, for example, have not been outstanding performers with respect to the several conditions of relative efficacy. In the concluding chapter, the authors discuss the general problem of the social responsibilities of powerful professions and make very specific suggestions for policy change and reform for the biomedical research profession and its use of human subjects.

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Small Ideas for Saving Big Health Care Dollars

Jodi L. Liu

RAND Corporation, 2014

A focused review of RAND Health research identified small ideas that could save the U.S. health care system $13 to $22 billion per year if successfully implemented. They include changing payment policy for emergency transport and greater use of $4 generic drugs. Small ideas do not require systemic change; thus, they may be both more feasible to operationalize and less likely to encounter stiff political and organizational resistance.

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Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion

A History of Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles

Abel, Emily K.

Rutgers University Press, 2007

Winner of the 2008 Arthur J. Viseltear Prize from the American Public Health Association and Nominated for the 2008 William H. Welch Medal, AAHM

Though notorious for its polluted air today, the city of Los Angeles once touted itself as a health resort. After the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in 1876, publicists launched a campaign to portray the city as the promised land, circulating countless stories of miraculous cures for the sick and debilitated. As more and more migrants poured in, however, a gap emerged between the city’s glittering image and its dark reality.

Emily K. Abel shows how the association of the disease with “tramps” during the 1880s and 1890s and Dust Bowl refugees during the 1930s provoked exclusionary measures against both groups. In addition, public health officials sought not only to restrict the entry of Mexicans (the majority of immigrants) during the 1920s but also to expel them during the 1930s.

Abel’s revealing account provides a critical lens through which to view both the contemporary debate about immigration and the U.S. response to the emergent global tuberculosis epidemic.

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