AMOSIST Program Field Evaluation: Safety and Effectiveness of Care.
Abstract
In response to the continuing shortage of physicians in the military, the US Army has recently developed a health care delivery system (the AMOSIST Program) which employs physician supervised enlisted corpsmen (AMOSISTs) in Acute Minor Illness Clinics (AMICs) to treat unappointed ambulatory outpatients through the use of printed manuals of medical algorithms. The present report (the third of four) presents the findings regarding the issues of the safety and the effectiveness of AMIC-delivered care. Safety-of-care was operationally defined as the extent to which the information recorded by AMOSISTs was consistent with the algorithms. Effectiveness-of-care was examined by comparing the data for AMIC-treated patients to that of patients treated in physician-staffed general outpatient clinics (GOC) regarding the rate of non-directed patient returns for care within 14 days of the date of their initial visit. The findings are that (a) errors among the data recorded by AMOSISTs were unacceptably high, and (b) no significant difference existed between patient return rates for AMIC-treated and GOC-treated patients. Recommendations were made to (a) revise and integrate the present data gathering and data utilization procedures employed by AMOSISTs, (b) formally increase local auditing requirements, and (c) provides a centralized, program-wide system for monitoring AMOSISTs' performance. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA072408
Entities
People
- Aaron W. Schopper
Organizations
- Academy of Health Sciences