Standards of care in medicine.

Growing concern over quality of care, increasing evidence of widespread differences in medical practice, increasing realization that much of medical practice lacks rigorous scientific underpinning, and a growing perception that society is not receiving sufficient value for resources expended on health care have led many to make the case for establishing rigorously constructed standards of care. After assessing deficiencies in the current process for generating standards of care and for implementing them, this article elaborates a two-step process for collecting clinical research data and incorporating expert clinical judgment. I believe a concerted effort to systematically develop medical standards of care should be made and that properly constructed and properly maintained standards will be acceptable to physicians.