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OCR Page 1 of 10004/09/99 13:40 FAX
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Quality First: Better Health Care for All Americans
Every day, millions of Americans receive high-quality health care that helps to maintain
or restore their health and ability to function. Skilled physicians, nurses, and other health
care practitioners offer expert compassionate care to people in need. High-caliber
hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care institutions provide care to patients in
need of acute and chronic care. Academic health centers educate and train new
generations of health care practitioners and house many of the finest scientific minds who
advance the science of health care. Federal, State, and local governments, private
employers, labor unions, and others purchase health care coverage for millions of
American families, offering security and peace of mind. And public and private quality
oversight organizations work to make sure that the care provided is of the highest quality
in the world.
A central goal of quality improvement is to maintain what is good about the existing
system while focusing on the areas that require improvement. While most Americans
receive high-quality care, too many patients receive substandard care. Quality problems
include wide variation in health care services, underuse of some services and overuse of
others, and an unacceptable level of errors.
Efforts by leaders of the health care professions, the health care industry, major
employers, and State and Federal agencies have significantly improved our ability to
identify quality problems and begin to address their causes. What is needed now is a
national commitment to quality improvement that begins with the President and the
Congress and extends to every level of the health care industry.
In seeking to improve the quality of care for all Americans, we cannot forget that there
are more than 41 million Americans who live day to day without the security of health
insurance. For them, access to quality care often is severely limited. Addressing this issue
is critical to improving the health and functioning of all who live in our communities.
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