We present an overview of key aspects of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Climate Research Facility (ACRF) data quality assurance program. Processes described include instrument deployment and calibration; instrument and facility maintenance; data collection and processing infrastructure; data stream inspection and assessment; problem reporting, review and resolution; data ar...

BACKGROUND Israel has boasted a highly effective national quality monitoring program for community-based health services since 2004. The program involves ongoing monitoring of the quality of selected services provided by Israeli health plans and includes approximately 70 indicators. OBJECTIVE To analyze Israeli primary care physicians' (PCPs) perceptions of nurses' roles in the national quali...

introduction: in the design of educational programs, much attention has been paid to teaching methods, needs assessment, an important part of the development of educational programs, generally is neglected. another important aspect in educational program design is assessing effectiveness. the aims of this study were to design a formal needs assessment program to define the core contents of a fa...

The Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) program gives us the opportunity to systematically monitor the quality of hospital care nationwide. To gauge the importance of the HQA indicators, we examined the relationship between hospitals' performance on HQA quality indicators and mortality for Medicare enrollees admitted for acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia. We found...

BACKGROUND In 2009, the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke (GWTG-Stroke) program offered additional recognition if hospitals performed well on certain stroke quality measures. We sought to determine whether quality of care for all hospitals participating in GWTG-Stroke improved with this expanded recognition program. METHODS AND RESULTS We examined hospital-level performance on 6 quality of care ...

water quality trading is a new approach in pollution control which satisfies water quality standards suggesting minimum cost solutions. this method uses tradable discharge permits based on pollution transfer coefficient in a river. this paper tries to establish a water quality trading program in a river basin according to transfer coefficients between pollution sources and evaluate cost effecti...