Best practices yield benefits. (Short Takes: News at Deadline).

There are significant geographical differences in the way medical problems like congestive heart failure are treated--and thus, enormous outcome and cost differences. But medical centers that implement "best practice" guidelines, such as those developed by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR). are more likely to achieve improved treatment, more efficient and cost-effective care, and increased patient satisfaction, according to a study at UCSF/Mount Zion Medical Center in San Francisco.

Researchers took the Agency's recommended guidelines for congestive heart failure and adapted them for patients served at the facility. The team found that implementing the guidelines resulted in improvements in patient care, fewer readmissions within 30 and 60 days of hospital discharge, and decreased cost and lengths of stays. Costs were reduced by 17 percent and length of stay dropped from 6.6 days to 5 days.

A retrospective audit was performed on the medical records of 100 patients who were treated prior to implementing the new "best practices" clinical pathway. Another 100 patients were then tracked after the implementation of the pathway.

James A. Hawkins is Publisher of Healthcare Briefings, a newsletter available in print, on cassette, via fax, and on computer disk. He can be reached at 800/338-5486.