PSRO's and quality health care.

Professional Standards Review Organizations (PSRO's) came into being because of the need for our health care delivery system to provide high-quality care at reasonable cost to our country's citizens. All those involved in the system must bear a part of the responsibility for the failures of that system in the past. And, there is no doubt that while our health care system has had many successes, there also has been failure. The cost of health care is literally approaching the limit that society can afford, and, indeed, for many has already passed that point. Access to health services is seriously impaired, not only by its high cost, but by the maldistribution of personnel and facilities. The quality of care is very uneven and, in too many instances, falls below what the majority of health professionals recognize as appropriate. The difference between what we know should and could be done and what is being done in many areas is wide and growing; and there is increasing evidence that our expensive health resources in manpower and facilities are inefficiently and inappropriately utilized. PSRO can be a mechanism to help correct many of these failures. It also may be the last opportunity that those in the health professions have to monitor and discipline themselves. If those immediately involved in the system cannot correct many of the problems, then those outside the system will have to step in to protect the public's interest. And, outside interference in the practice of medicine is what health professionals would not like to see happen and what the PSRO law was designed to prevent.