Priorities in Patient-Care Research and Continuing Medical Education

A priority system has been developed to define areas of patient-care research or education or both that might be most rewarding in terms of potential improvement of medical care. This system, applicable to any given population, consists of three sequential steps: (1) ranking each medical condition according to expected patient impairment, (2) determining which of these conditions encompass sufficient preventable or remedial impairment to warrant the third step; and (3) assessing medical care provided, to identify where further effort might be indicated to effect improvement. As a result, investigation of six top ranking disease categories at the Rockford (III) Memorial Hospital revealed areas of educational needs ranging from those where little instructional effort seemed warranted to those where immediate action seemed indicated.