title: A view from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research: the use of language in clinical practice guidelines.
abstract: "Good medicine is good law" is the first principle for writing good guidelines. The most important legal inquiry will be whether the language specifies mandatory or persuasive actions. Ordinary words may be hazardous when they are used ambiguously and create more than one meaning. That may mean a jury will decide what was meant.
authors.affiliation: Legal Medicine Program, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, Maryland.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hastings
mesh_terms: D003675:Defensive Medicine / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006291:Health Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D008318:Malpractice / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012660:Semantics; D014481:United States