Pediatrics in Review
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(Pediatrics in Review. 1997;18:219-220.)
© 1997 American Academy of Pediatrics

Practice Parameters: What Are They and Why Should We Use Them?

Lawrence F. Nazarian, MD*
* Associate Editor
As the quality improvement movement rumbles across the medical landscape, practitioners are encountering clinical guidelines that they are expected to incorporate into their practices. Some are created by national organizations; others come from hospitals and medical staffs; still others are handed down by managed care organizations. Most guidelines are designed to improve care, although the better ones also will contain appropriate strategies for saving money. However, some are created to cut costs or increase revenue with little regard for their effect on patients.

Just as the motives for conceiving guidelines vary, the process of gestation is widely diverse. One person can write a review article and call it a guideline. A group of people not directly involved in clinical care can draft a clinical blueprint and present it with authority. In the best case, an organization that has expertise and no personal financial stake in the use of the guideline can undertake an objective and thorough process of creation that includes critical review. This is the approach chosen by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to produce its guidelines, which it calls practice parameters.

The . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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Copyright © 1997 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.