Product Description
Improving care for the patients who are in the last phase of their lives has been a field that most health care providers have struggled with during last few years. Having worked with hundreds of providers throughout the country, these experienced authors know what providers need when it comes to implementing a quality improvement project. This guide will provide user-friendly, step-by-step instructions on how to implement a quality improvement project in the full range of care settings. The instructions will be brought to life with specific examples from actual successful projects and key information on the best practices in the industry. Readers will also be pointed to resources available online and elsewhere, with information on how to access them. The guide will be written in an informal, maximally helpful style, with checklists, tables, and boxed information. Answering 80% of the questions in less than half the space, The Common Sense Guide is the perfect portable companion to Dr. Lynn's desk reference, Improving Care for the End of Life. The book will be of great interest to all health care professionals involved in the care of those with serious chronic illness -- doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, clinic administrators, quality improvement experts, and so forth.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 1 review)

A very useful book! by James L. Hallenbeck

5 Stars
March 26, 2007
Joanne Lynn and colleagues have just come out with a great new book, The Common Sense Guide to Improving Palliative Care. (OxfordUniversity Press, 2007). Like their prior work in this area (Improving Care for the End of Life, now in a revised version, 2007), this pocket-sized book discusses quality improvement strategies. Using explicit examples from teams working in various venues in which palliative care is practiced (palliative care consult teams, ICU, nursing homes, hospices, etc.) the authors demonstrate how measurable improvement can be accomplished by following some straightforward quality improvement steps. This book really is about common sense. Over and over I found myself thinking, "we could do that where I work!" I suspect other readers will similarly be inspired to emulate projects described in this fine book. Highly recommended! James Hallenbeck, MD Director, Palliative Care Services Stanford University School of Medicine

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