Response to the National Cancer Institute alert: The effect of practice guidelines on two hospitals in the same medical community

Background. Despite the recent increase in medical practice guideline development and dissemination, physician compliance with the guidelines has often been low. Previous research has suggested that physicians at hospitals with low volumes of cases and weakened financial status were more likely to omit indicated diagnostic testing or appropriate treatment. The authors sought to determine whether differences in compliance to a widely disseminated set of guidelines would exist even among the most dominant hospital providers within the same medical community.