Welcome to the archival site of Convergent Medical Systems, which is being maintained to support previous publications. Dr. David Kailin retired from consulting at the close of 2009.
Clicking on the QCAM Text tab above will take you supporting materials for the textbook entitled Quality In Complementary & Alternative Medicine.
Clicking on the News Desk tab will guide you to past articles primarily related to federal regulations impacting health care providers.
A very brief summary of Dr. Kailin's innovative concept of quality in health services, based on seven core purposes, is presented below.
Assessments of quality implicitly or explicitly presume valued ends.
The valued ends of health care seem obvious at first glance - to heal
and comfort the sick. But health care is a complex social transaction
involving many entities, including nature, society, healers, families,
and patients. Each entity has fundamental and legitimate ends that are
negotiated in the transaction.
The seven core purposes framework describes those intrinsic ends most succinctly as follows:
Ecological .......... biosystemic balance
Societal ............. good of the body politic
Spiritual ............. quest for meaning
Moral .................. attending to suffering
Augmentative .... enhancing capacities
Corporeal ........... bodily treatment
Economic ........... fair exchange
By asking how well we are fulfilling these core purposes (singly and
conjointly), we can open distinctive opportunities for quality
assessment and quality improvement. By better fulfilling the broader
array of core purposes, we can add significant value and satisfaction,
even while reducing cost.
A generation ago, George Engel’s bio-psycho-social framework brought a
perspective wider than the biomedical model, and became the basis of
education for family practice. The seven core purposes framework
further expands our understanding of the goals and tasks of medicine.
David Kailin, Ph.D.
E-mail: kailin@convergentmedical.com
Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, David Kailin, All Rights Reserved
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