BMJ  2004;328:362 (14 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7436.362

Editorial

Dr Foster case notes

A new monthly section will provide data on what is happening in health services

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Starting this week the BMJ will publish a monthly page highlighting data from Dr Foster, an independent, London based organisation that analyses the availability and quality of health care in the United Kingdom and worldwide (www.drfoster.com).1 We aim to create a page that is rich in data and will allow doctors, managers, and patients to learn from what is happening in the NHS and other healthcare systems. Much of what the BMJ publishes arises from experimental studies, particularly randomised controlled trials. Dr Foster case notes will provide an opportunity to see what happens in the real, messy world of practice.

This month's page, for example, analyses data from 132 of the 172 acute trusts in England and shows that trusts that have acute stroke units have an 11% lower hospital mortality from stroke than trusts that don't have such units. This shows that the results from trials are . . . [Full text of this article]

Jocalyn Clark, assistant editor

BMJ, (jclark@bmj.com)

Richard Smith, editor

BMJ, (rsmith@bmj.com)


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