Healthcare is a giant with feet of clay
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Giovanni Barletta
Abstract
There is an increasing emphasis on using cost-effectiveness analysis to achieve a higher value for the money invested in the healthcare, avoiding waste and unnecessary costs. The process for achieving a better use of available resources should include five steps: collecting data, developing indicators, evaluating evidence, making informed decisions, and considering consequences. Clinical laboratories represent a paradigmatic model to improve data collection in order to develop further steps of the improvement process. Here we describe the experience of the “e-Valuate” project, aiming to improve the collection of laboratory data to provide useful information that should be the foundation for all other steps of this improvement project.
Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Research funding: None declared.
Employment or leadership: None declared.
Honorarium: None declared.
Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.
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©2016 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Opinion Paper
- Healthcare is a giant with feet of clay
- Original Articles
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- Primary care pediatricians’ interest in diagnostic error reduction
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- Case Reports
- Those eyes don’t lie: a case of osmotic demyelination syndrome in a patient with hepatic encephalopathy
- CA-125: What does that lab really mean?
- Letter to the Editor
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- Congress Abstracts
- Diagnostic Error in Medicine 1st European Conference June 30–July 1, 2016
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Opinion Paper
- Healthcare is a giant with feet of clay
- Original Articles
- Diagnosis is a team sport – partnering with allied health professionals to reduce diagnostic errors
- An investigation into method of diagnosis in clinicopathologic conferences (CPCs)
- Primary care pediatricians’ interest in diagnostic error reduction
- Spurious elevation of serum potassium concentration measured in samples with thrombocytosis
- Mobile phone exposure influences some erythrocytes parameters in vitro. A novel source of preanalytical variability?
- Case Reports
- Those eyes don’t lie: a case of osmotic demyelination syndrome in a patient with hepatic encephalopathy
- CA-125: What does that lab really mean?
- Letter to the Editor
- Assessment of reticulated platelets with automated hemocytometers: are we measuring the same thing?
- Congress Abstracts
- Diagnostic Error in Medicine 1st European Conference June 30–July 1, 2016
