Dear Bob, 

Concerned subscribers to this list together with other interested
physicians might undertake a formal study to assess the quality
of medical care rendered by private and public corporations.
Such a study would entail a data bank, which unlike its federally
mandated counterpart would focus not upon the derelictions that flow
from the negligence of individual physicians but on the derelictions
that flow from the negligence of the physicians' employers.
One would have to be extraordinarily cautious not to lay oneself
open to charges of libel. However such risks would arise not from
the collection of the information but from the use that was made of it,
a decision that should be postponed until after the information
about any given institution had been obtained. The mere existence
of such a project would probably have a salutary effect; for,
as Francis Bacon said, knowledge itself is power.
         
                                         Ernst Meyer