A Strategy for Quality Assurance in Medicare

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has just released a report on quality assurance for the Medicare program.1 The legislation authorizing the study called for an ambitious and far-reaching strategic plan for assessing and ensuring the quality of medical care for elderly people during the next decade. The deliberations and fact finding of the study's 17-member committee included the review of commissioned and staff-produced papers, public hearings, panels, site visits, focus groups, and many meetings. The resulting report indicates that although the current quality of medical care for Medicare enrollees is not bad, it could be . . .