EDITORIAL Refining JCOM’s Mission to Support Quality Improvement

JCOM is an independent, peer-reviewed journal offering evidence-based, practical information for improving health care quality.-JCOM mission statement, 2001 Although the United States spends more for healthcare than any country in the world, health care out-comes for Americans are not as good as they could be. Among industrialized nations, the United States ranks below average on available outcome indicators, and its rela-tive ranking has been declining since the 1960s [1]. These fig-ures suggest that there is substantial room for improvement in how we provide health care in this country. A major focus of health care research in the United States has been on technological advances in the diagnosis and treatment of illness. These research efforts are extremely important and will continue to be so, especially as the mys-teries of the human genome are unraveled. However, if one asks the question, “What strategy will most improve th