The physicians practice profile: a piece of the quality puzzle.

In responding to a New York State law and regulations that essentially mandated high quality and required hospitals to implement a system of physician practice profiles, Genesee Memorial Hospital involved the medical staff at all stages and made heavy use of computers for the ultimate system. The result is a profile system with the backing of physicians and with easy access to maximum amounts of information. Still, the author asserts, such profiles are at best an imperfect response to issues of quality.