In addition, unlike most peer reviews, I know who is the author and also know a bit about the reaction to this books. specific knowledge) in the business world. Of course, I do not have content expertise (i.e. I write peer reviews for medical journals on a fairly regular basis and have some advanced (Master’s level) training in clinical research methods. To answer this question I decided to write a peer review of Collin’s book From Good to Great. The question occurred to me: What would happen if EBM standards were applied to the management books coming to medicine from the business community? Expert opinion is not valueless, but there are better ways of getting at the truth. This is what we in medicine have come to call “expert advice” and it is considered the lowest form of evidence for adopting a particular therapy. It is striking, then, that the advice presented in these business books often seems to lack any supporting evidence other than a series of colorful anecdotes mixed with the equally colorful opinions of the author. This is the general idea behind what is called evidence-based medicine (EBM). In clinical practice we strive (often not all that successfully) to base our actions on the best available evidence. Others are generic management books such as Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence: Lessons from Americas Best Run Companiesor Jim Collin’s Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. Beeson’s Practicing Excellence: A Physician’s Manual to Exceptional Health Care and Fred Lee’s If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently are specifically written for the health market. Symptomatic of this trend is the proliferation in health care settings of business oriented books on management. Patients become customers, clinical care becomes one more product line. In the US, hospitals – even not-for-profits – are forced to adopt the methods and vocabulary of business. One of the solutions offered to the chronic crisis in US health care is to introduce the “rationality of the market.” Overseas this has meant the introduction of US-style HMO‘s and the privatization of national health care systems.
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