Epidemiology and health services administration: future relationships in practice and education.
Florence Nightingale's mid-nineteenth century proposals for standard classification of diseases were a model for assessing quality of hospital care. A century later, health planning, management, and evaluation are still in pursuit of her unrealized--and imperfect--objectives. Historical, statistical, and epidemiological limitations to linking the cost and outcome of treating patients and populations are examined; an integrated model is offered for operational rapprochement between medical and administrative services.
D000368:Aged; D003237:Connecticut; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004194:Disease / Q000145:classification; D004813:Epidemiology; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006739:Hospital Administration / Q000266:history; D006740:Hospital Administrators / Q000193:education; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy