Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:40:58.117Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two faces of patient safety and care quality: a Franco-American comparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2011

Laurent Degos  and
Victor G. Rodwin
Laurent Degos
Affiliation:
Past President (2004–2010), Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS), Professor of Medicine, University of Paris 7, Denis Diderot, France
Victor G. Rodwin*
Affiliation:
Professor, Health Policy and Management, Wagner School of Public Service, New York University, USA
*
*Correspondence to: Professor Victor G. Rodwin, Puck Building 2nd Floor, 295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, USA. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Patient safety, and more broadly the quality of care, is typically discussed with reference to the reduction of preventable adverse events within hospitals and adherence to practice guidelines on care processes. We call it the ‘care-centered approach’ and recognize that the United States is a leader in the field. Another face of patient safety and care quality may be defined as the ‘system-centered approach’. It focuses on access to a timely and effective continuum of health-care services – clinical prevention, primary care and appropriate referral to and receipt of specialty care. Although France's efforts to pursue a care-centered approach to patient safety are limited, its system-centered approach yields some benefits. Based on the evidence we have reviewed for access to primary care (hospital discharges for avoidable hospital conditions), mortality amenable to medical intervention and consumer satisfaction, in the United States and France, there appear to be good grounds for bolstering the system-centered approach in the United States.

Type
Perspective
Information
Health Economics, Policy and Law , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , 16 June 2011 , pp. 287 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AFSA: Agence Française de Sécurité des Aliments; AFSSAPS: Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé; EFS: Etablissment Français du Sang; InVS: Institut de Veille Sanitaire.Google Scholar
Amalberti, R., Auroy, Y., Berwick, D.Barach, P. (2005), ‘Five system barriers to achieving ultrasafe health care’, Annals of Internal Medicine, 142: 756–764.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berwick, D. M. (1989), ‘Continuous improvement as an ideal in health care’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 320: 53–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, K., Schoen, C., Shoenbaum, S., et al. (2007), ‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: an International Update of the Comparative Performance of American Healthcare’, The Commonwealth Fund, http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2007/May/Mirror--Mirror-on-the-Wall--An-International-Update-on-the-Comparative-Performance-of-American-Healt.aspx [accessed 19 March 2011].Google Scholar
Degos, L., Romaneix, F., Michel, P., Bacou, J. (2008), ‘Can France keep its patients happy?’, British Medical J., 336: 254–257; Table 3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dourgnon, P.Naiditch, M. (2010), ‘The preferred doctor scheme: a political reading of a French experiment of gate-keeping’, Health Policy, 94: 129–134.Google Scholar
Gusmano, M., Rodwin, V.Weisz, D. (2006), ‘New way to compare health systems: avoidable hospital conditions in Manhattan and Paris’, Health Affairs, 25(2): 510–520.Google Scholar
Gusmano, M., Rodwin, V.Weisz, D. (2010), Health Care in World Cities: New York, Paris and London, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gusmano, M., Weisz, D., Andrews, T., Rodwin, V. (2007), Reduce Avoidable Hospitalisations: A Policy to Increase Value from Health Care Expenditures, London: Alliance for Health & the Future, http://www.ilcusa.org/media/pdfs/Reduce_Avoid_Hospitalisations.pdf [accessed 19 March 2011].Google Scholar
Harris Interactive (HI) (2008), http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/countries-which-europeans-admire-for-their-systems-of-government-quality-of-life-environment-economies-and-health-care-systems-75203567.html [accessed 19 March 2011].Google Scholar
Harris Interactive/France 24/International Herald Tribune Survey (2008), See Harris Interactive News Room – Western European and U_S_ Adults Tear Down this Health Care System! mht.Google Scholar
Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI), http://www .ihi.org/IHI/Topics/LeadingSystemImprovement/ [accessed 19 March 2011].Google Scholar
Institute of Medicine (1993), Access to Health Care in America, Committee on Monitoring Access to Personal Health Care Services, Institute of Medicine, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Jha, A., Li, Z., Orav, J.Epstein, A. (2005), ‘Care in US hospitals – the hospital quality alliance’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 353: 265–274.Google Scholar
Klein, E., Smith, D., Laxminarayan, R. (2009), Community-associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in Outpatients, United States, 1999–2006. http://www.gov/eid/, Emerging Infectious Disease, 12(15): 1925–1930.Google Scholar
Klevens, M. R., Edwards, J., Richards, C., et al. (2007), ‘Estimating health care-associated infections and deaths in U.S. hospitals, 2002’, Public Health Reports, 122: 160–166.Google Scholar
Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., Donaldson, M. S. (1999), To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, Committee on Quality in America, Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Landrigan, C., et al. (2010), ‘Temporal trends in rates of patient harm resulting from medical care’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 363(22): 2124–2134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Longo, D., Hewett, J., G., B.Schubert, S. (2005), ‘The long road to patient safety: a status report on patient safety systems’, The Journal of the American Medical Association, 29(22): 2858–2865.Google Scholar
Macinko, J., et al. (2003), ‘The contribution of primary care systems to health outcomes within OECD countries, 1970–1998’, Health Services Research, 38: 831–865.Google Scholar
Michel, P., Quenon, J.-L., Djihoud, A., Tricaud-Vialle, S.Marie de Sarasqueta, A. (2007), ‘French national survey of inpatient adverse events prospectively assessed with ward staff’, Qualityand Safety in Health Care, 16: 369–377.Google Scholar
OECD Health Data, 2006 (2007), U.S. Health Care Spending: Comparison with Other OECD Countries, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.Google Scholar
OECD Health Policy Studies (2010), Improvidng Value in Health Care. Measuring Quality, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Nolte, E.McKee, M. (2008), ‘Measuring the health of nations: updating and earlier analysis’, Health Affairs, 27(1): 58–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Porter, M. (2010), ‘What is value in health care?’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 363(26): 2477–2481.Google Scholar
Rodwin, V. (2003), ‘The health care system under French national health insurance: lessons for health reform in the United States’, American Journal of Public Health, 93(1): 31–37.Google Scholar
Schoen, C. (2010), ‘How health insurance design affects access to care and costs by income, in eleven countries’, Health Affairs, 29(12): 1–12.Google Scholar
Schoen, C., Osborn, R., Trang Huynh, P., et al. (2004), ‘Primary Care and Health System Performance: Adults’ Experiences in Five Countries. Health Affairs’, Web Exclusive, W4-487-W4-503, http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.w4.487v1.pdf [28 October 2004]Google Scholar
Steffen, M. (1999), ‘The Nation's Blood: Medicine, Justice, and the State in France’, in E. Feldman and R. Bayer (eds), Blood Feuds: AIDS, Blood, and the Politics of Medical Disaster, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 96–126.Google Scholar
Weissman, J. S., Gatsonis, C.Epstein, A. M. (1992), ‘Rates of avoidable hospitalization by insurance status in Massachusetts and Maryland’, The Journal of the American Medical Association, 268: 2388–2394.Google Scholar
Weisz, D., Gusmano, M., Rodwin, V.Neuberg, L. (2008), ‘Population health and the health system: a comparative analysis of avoidable mortality in three nations and their world cities’, European Journal of Public Health, 18: 166–172.Google Scholar
Werner, R.Asch, D. (2005), ‘The unintended consequences of publicly reporting quality information’, The Journal of the American Medical Association, 293: 1239–1244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed