Published 22 October 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4346
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4346

Editor's Choice

Effective, safe, and a good patient experience

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

We talk a lot about improving the quality of health care. But until recently if you asked people what they meant by quality you got a range of unmemorable answers. Then came the cumulative work of Sheila Leatherman and her colleagues, and in the UK Ara Darzi’s 2008 High Quality Care for All. Now everyone I talk to is using the same language: quality means clinical effectiveness, safety, and a good experience for the patient. This week’s BMJ has something to say on all three.

On clinical effectiveness, Barbara Kuijper and colleagues ask what’s the right non-surgical approach for people with cervical radiculopathy (doi:10.1136/bmj.b3883). Patients with subacute onset have a good prognosis, so it’s reasonable to wait and see for the first six weeks. But there is little evidence on what works best to alleviate the pain, which can be excruciating, while waiting for things to resolve. . . . [Full text of this article]

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