Using Healthcare Information to Help Make Treatment Decisions

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Good Information Is Essential to Good Decisions

It may have taken you only a visit or two to your doctor or other healthcare provider to find out what’s causing your health problem. It may have taken longer. But now you have a diagnosis, and it’s time to make some decisions about your treatment.

For many conditions, there is no one "right" treatment. You may have several options—each with its upsides and downsides. Some of your options may have been proven by healthcare research to be effective, while others may not.

In the future, your doctor or other healthcare provider may be able to tap into a nationwide database containing the results of treatments for thousands of people like you with your condition. This would help you and your doctor make a good decision about the treatment that would be right for you.

Initial efforts to develop this national database are under way, but until that database is available, there are still things you can do to make sure you get the best health care possible—right now.

Finding out more about your condition is a good place to start. By contacting groups that support your condition, visiting your local library, and searching on the Internet, you can find good information to help guide your treatment decisions. Some information may be hard to find—especially if you don't know where to look. This document has been created to point you in the right direction.

Healthcare Quality Can Vary

Many things can affect the quality of your healthcare, depending on your doctor or other healthcare provider, your health plan, your hospital, and where you live.

Online Resource: Healthcare Quality is an Internet site sponsored by the Federal Government’s Quality Interagency Coordination Task Force. This site explains what quality healthcare is, why it matters, and how you can get it.

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