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As the US health care system begins to reengineer itself to address the need for quality improvement, it also is being actively reshaped by the expectations of consumers. The confluence of these forces requires a new approach to setting health care performance standards. The National Quality Forum (NQF) has been established as a private, not-for-profit, open membership, public benefit corporation for the purposes of developing consensus about standardized health care performance measures, reporting mechanisms, and a national strategy for health care quality improvement. The NQF has broad representation from all segments of the health care industry and provides an equitable way of addressing the disparate priorities of health care's many stakeholders. Agreement and implementation of standardized health care performance measures and achievement of quality improvement in the emerging era of consumerism will be facilitated by (1) establishing national goals for health care quality; (2) embracing public policy that recognizes the complementary roles of quality improvement, cost control, and improved access; (3) giving greater priority to measuring and reporting the performance of those aspects of the health care system that directly affect consumers; (4) focusing on creating a health care culture of excellence; and (5) promoting the active collaboration of all stakeholders.

Context: Planning for the US physician workforce is imprecise. Prevailing policy generally advocates more training in primary care specialties., Objective: To describe a program to increase primary care graduate medical education (GME) in a large academic health system-the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)., Design: In 1995, a VA advisory panel recommended a 3-year plan to eliminate 1000 specialist training positions and add 750 primary care positions. After assessing the impact of the first year of these changes on patient care, the VA implemented modifications aimed at introducing primary care curricula for training of internal medicine subspecialists, neurologists, and psychiatrists. The change in strategy was in response to the call for better alignment of GME with local patient care and training needs to provide coordinated, continuous care for seriously and chronically ill patients., Setting: The VA health system, including 172 hospitals, 773 ambulatory and community-based clinics, 206 counseling centers, and 132 nursing homes., Participants: A total of 8900 VA residency training positions affiliated with 107 medical schools., Main Outcome Measure: Proportion of residents in primary care training during the 3-year alignment., Results: Over 3 years, primary care training in the VA increased from 38% to 48% of funded positions. Of this total, 39% of the increase was in internal medicine subspecialties, neurology, and psychiatry., Conclusion: In this case study of GME realignment, national policy was driven more by local patient care issues than by a perceived national need for primary care or specialty positions.

Objective: To determine the incidence, nature, demographics, severity, and hospital charges associated with inpatient treatment of firearm-related injuries., Design: A retrospective, 1-year, population-based study of firearm-related hospitalizations based on the 1991 California Hospital Discharge Abstract Data Tapes., Setting: California acute care hospitals that reported firearm-related discharges., Patients: A total of 9562 patients discharged with firearm-related injuries., Main Outcome Measures: Per capita hospital discharge rates, according to age, race, and sex., Results: A total of 9562 firearm-injured persons were discharged from California hospitals in 1991, representing a rate of 32 discharges per 100 000 population. Males aged 15 to 24 years accounted for 72% of the hospitalizations. For all causes of firearm-related injury, the highest age- and race-specific discharge rate was 439 per 100,000 for black persons aged 15 to 24 years. The highest county discharge rate was 55 per 100,000 for Los Angeles County. Statewide, there were 1.8 hospital discharges per firearm-related fatality (both in the hospital and in the community). Assaults accounted for 74% of cases. Among black males aged 15 to 24 years, assaults accounted for 598 discharges per 100 000 population. Hospital charges for 9193 patients exceeded $164 million; mean and median charges per patient discharged were $17,888 and $8535, respectively. Publicly financed health insurance programs sponsored 56% of patients; 25% had private insurance, and 19% were uninsured. Fifty-three percent of the discharges occurred at 13 of the 371 hospitals that discharged patients with firearm-related injuries., Conclusions: Firearm-related violence is a major cause of hospitalization of young urban black males and represents a significant cost to publicly financed health care. The impact on individual hospitals is highly disproportionate. While hospital discharge data can be used for population-based surveillance of firearm-related trauma, there is need for improvement in local, state, and national surveillance of these injuries.

Objective: To quantify the actual cost of inpatient medical care for firearm-related injuries at a university trauma center., Design: Retrospective case series of all hospital admissions for firearm-related injuries for the 3 years 1990 through 1992. Total inpatient financial data were examined by means of a recently instituted cost-accounting methodology., Setting: Level I trauma center at a university hospital that provides trauma care and tertiary care to 3.7 million residents of 23 counties., Patients: A total of 787 consecutive patients were admitted to the hospital with firearm-related injuries. Information from the trauma registry and hospital finance records were linked for 750 (95%) of these patients., Main Outcome Measures: Total inpatient hospital charges, costs, revenues, and net income according to payer source., Results: Men aged 15 to 44 years accounted for 77% of patients with firearm-related injuries. The overall mean and median hospital charges per admission were $52,271 and $28,033, respectively, whereas the overall mean and median hospital costs per admission were $13,794 and $7964, respectively. The net income per patient ranged from an average loss of $6980 for each patient having no insurance to an average profit of $28,557 for each patient with a health maintenance organization contract. The losses sustained on nonsponsored and Medicaid patients were more than offset by net income from patients having private health insurance, Medicare, or other insurance coverage such that there was an average profit of $5809 per admission for a firearm-related injury., Conclusions: Treatment of firearm-related injuries produces net income for this university trauma center by virtue of the cost shifting built into its pricing structure. If data from this institution are extrapolated to the nation, then the actual cost of providing medical care for firearm-related injuries in the United States in 1995 is projected to be $4.0 billion. The majority of this cost will be paid indirectly by private health insurance.

Cigarette smoking continues to be the leading preventable cause of death in California and the United States. Although substantial progress has been made over the past 25 years, there is growing recognition of the need for large-scale efforts to reduce tobacco use. Given their central roles in implementing public health programs and their ability to reach many of the groups most at risk of tobacco use uptake and tobacco-related disease, state health agencies have an important challenge before them. This article describes the development and operation of a statewide, publicly funded anti-tobacco use campaign currently undertaken by the California Department of Health Services under the auspices of the state's Tobacco Tax and Health Promotion Act of 1988 (Proposition 99), which increased excise taxes on cigarettes by 25 cents per pack sold in the state. A discussion of problems in implementation and operation being incurred may be relevant to the planning of similar campaigns elsewhere.

Fifty cases of decompression sickness are reviewed in which recompression treatment was delayed for 12 hours or longer after the onset of dysbaric symptoms. Twenty-four patients (48%) had pain only. The other 26 patients (52%) had more serious decompression sickness; two patients may have had air embolisms. Ninety percent of the patients recovered either completely (66%) or substantially (24%) with recompression and associated treatment, although standard recompression protocols had to be lengthened in many of the cases.

This article describes 51 cases of Scorpaenidae envenomation, 45 of which were lionfish stings to aquarists or fish handlers. The primary manifestation of envenomation in all victims was intense local pain. Various other local and systemic symptoms were also noted. Immersion in hot water produced either complete (80%) or moderate (14%) symptomatic relief in 94% of the victims. This simple and effective treatment was generally unknown to emergency personnel treating these patients.

We propose establishing private and public outpatient facilities where persons with human immunodeficiency virus, type 1 (HIV-1), infection can receive state-of-the-art clinical and behavioral follow-up, treatment, and assistance. The possible advantages of enrolling HIV-1-positive persons into long-term follow-up are early treatment of clinical conditions and resulting gains in life quality and life expectancy, decreased transmission of HIV-1 to uninfected persons, more efficient use of scarce patient-care resources, and improved estimates of the total number of HIV-infected persons. The possible disadvantages of such a program are adverse psychological reactions to knowledge of HIV-1 infection, adverse societal actions against infected persons, and, finally, the economic cost of the program. These facilities, with the proper expertise and safeguards of confidentiality and trust, could prolong and improve the lives of infected persons while preventing infection of others.