30 research outputs found
High Quality Care and Ethical Pay-for-Performance: A Society of General Internal Medicine Policy Analysis
BACKGROUND: Pay-for-performance is proliferating, yet its impact on key stakeholders remains uncertain. OBJECTIVE: The Society of General Internal Medicine systematically evaluated ethical issues raised by performance-based physician compensation. RESULTS: We conclude that current arrangements are based on fundamentally acceptable ethical principles, but are guided by an incomplete understanding of health-care quality. Furthermore, their implementation without evidence of safety and efficacy is ethically precarious because of potential risks to stakeholders, especially vulnerable patients. CONCLUSION: We propose four major strategies to transition from risky pay-for-performance systems to ethical performance-based physician compensation and high quality care. These include implementing safeguards within current pay-for-performance systems, reaching consensus regarding the obligations of key stakeholders in improving health-care quality, developing valid and comprehensive measures of health-care quality, and utilizing a cautious evaluative approach in creating the next generation of compensation systems that reward genuine quality
Measurement of global polarization of {\Lambda} hyperons in few-GeV heavy-ion collisions
The global polarization of {\Lambda} hyperons along the total orbital angular
momentum of a relativistic heavy-ion collision is presented based on the high
statistics data samples collected in Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s_{NN}} = 2.4
GeV and Ag+Ag at 2.55 GeV with the High-Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer
(HADES) at GSI, Darmstadt. This is the first measurement below the strangeness
production threshold in nucleon-nucleon collisions. Results are reported as a
function of the collision centrality as well as a function of the hyperon
transverse momentum (p_T) and rapidity (y_{CM}) for the range of centrality
0--40%. We observe a strong centrality dependence of the polarization with an
increasing signal towards peripheral collisions. For mid-central (20--40%)
collisions the polarization magnitudes are (%) = 6.0 \pm 1.3
(stat.) \pm 2.0 (syst.) for Au+Au and (%) = 4.6 \pm 0.4 (stat.)
\pm 0.5 (syst.) for Ag+Ag, which are the largest values observed so far. This
observation thus provides a continuation of the increasing trend previously
observed by STAR and contrasts expectations from recent theoretical
calculations predicting a maximum in the region of collision energies about 3
GeV. The observed polarization is of a similar magnitude as predicted by 3D
fluid dynamics and the UrQMD plus thermal vorticity model and significantly
above results from the AMPT model.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Inclusive ee production in collisions of pions with protons and nuclei in the second resonance region of baryons
Inclusive ee production has been studied with HADES in + p,
+ C and reactions, using the GSI pion beam at
= 1.49 GeV. Invariant mass and transverse momentum
distributions have been measured and reveal contributions from Dalitz decays of
, mesons and baryon resonances. The transverse momentum
distributions are very sensitive to the underlying kinematics of the various
processes. The baryon contribution exhibits a deviation up to a factor seven
from the QED reference expected for the dielectron decay of a hypothetical
point-like baryon with the production cross section constrained from the
inverse n p reaction. The enhancement is attributed
to a strong four-momentum squared dependence of the time-like electromagnetic
transition form factors as suggested by Vector Meson Dominance (VMD). Two
versions of the VMD, that differ in the photon-baryon coupling, have been
applied in simulations and compared to data. VMD1 (or two-component VMD)
assumes a coupling via the meson and a direct coupling of the photon,
while in VMD2 (or strict VMD) the coupling is only mediated via the
meson. The VMD2 model, frequently used in transport calculations for dilepton
decays, is found to overestimate the measured dielectron yields, while a good
description of the data can be obtained with the VMD1 model assuming no phase
difference between the two amplitudes. Similar descriptions have also been
obtained using a time-like baryon transition form factor model where the pion
cloud plays the major role.Comment: (HADES collaboration
Outcomes research in the development and evaluation of practice guidelines
BACKGROUND: Practice guidelines have been developed in response to the observation that variations exist in clinical medicine that are not related to variations in the clinical presentation and severity of the disease. Despite their widespread use, however, practice guideline evaluation lacks a rigorous scientific methodology to support its development and application. DISCUSSION: Firstly, we review the major epidemiological foundations of practice guideline development. Secondly, we propose a chronic disease epidemiological model in which practice patterns are viewed as the exposure and outcomes of interest such as quality or cost are viewed as the disease. Sources of selection, information, confounding and temporal trend bias are identified and discussed. SUMMARY: The proposed methodological framework for outcomes research to evaluate practice guidelines reflects the selection, information and confounding biases inherent in its observational nature which must be accounted for in both the design and the analysis phases of any outcomes research study