Health Services Research articles from December 2002

Health Services Research archives from December 2002

Access to care: remembering old lessons. (Editorial Column).(analysis of access to medical care, health insurance)(Editorial)
December 1, 2002... More than 20 years ago, Penchansky and Thomas (1981) published an article titled "The Concept of Access: Definition and Relationship to Consumer Satisfaction." In the opening sentence to this article, they note: "'access' is a major concern in...

Medigap premiums and Medicare HMO enrollment. (Access to Care).
December 1, 2002... Although access to expanded benefits is widely recognized as a primary motivation for joining Medicare managed care plans, there are other mechanisms by which Medicare beneficiaries might gain access to added benefits, specifically through...

Health insurance and mammography: would a Medicare buy-in take us to universal screening?
December 1, 2002... Mammography is an important part of prevention efforts and has been shown to reduce mortality among women older than 50 (Shapiro et al. 1982; Roberts et al. 1990; Tabar et al. 1992; Nystrom et ad. 1993; Kerlikowske et al. 1995; Salzman,...

Racial differences in predictors of dental care use.
December 1, 2002... The growing literature on racial disparities in health and health care use has documented significantly poorer health and lower health care utilization among non-Hispanic African Americans (AAs), when compared with non-Hispanic whites (NHWs)....

Usual source of care in preventive service use: a regular doctor versus a regular site.
December 1, 2002... It has been well established that continuity of care is an important component of the quality of medical care (Starfield 1992). Lack of a usual source of care not only interrupts continuity of care but also imposes a significant barrier to...

The lack of effect of market structure on hospice use.
December 1, 2002... Hospice offers substantial benefits to patients at the end of life. It can be delivered in a patient's home, facilitating at-home death (Moinpour and Polissar 1989; Mor and Hiris 1983). Hospice care optimizes relief of pain and other symptoms...

Error reduction and performance improvement in the emergency department through formal teamwork training: evaluation results of the MedTeams project. (Quality of Care).
December 1, 2002... The MedTeams project is a translational research effort to apply crew resource management (CRM) behavioral principles developed in aviation to emergency medical care. Hospital emergency departments share many of the same characteristics with...

Specialty health care, treatment patterns, and quality: the impact of a mental health carve-out on care for depression.
December 1, 2002... Carve-outs, the management of mental health care by firms that are legally and administratively separate from the firm managing general medical care, have become common in both the public and private health care sectors (Grazier and Eselius...

An observational study of antibiotic prescribing behavior and the Hawthorne effect.
December 1, 2002... THE HAWTHORNE EFFECT The Hawthorne effect refers to a phenomenon where a study subject's behavior and/or study outcomes are altered as a result of the subject's awareness of being under observation. This phenomenon was originally...

Medical expenditures during the last year of life: findings from the 1992-1996 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey. (Cost of Care).
December 1, 2002... The elderly (65 years of age and older) have consumed more than 33 percent of health care spending (Waldo, Sonnefeld, and Arnett 1989). Their medical expenses are substantially higher in the last year of life (Scitovsky 1984; Riley et al. 1987;...

Using Medicare data to estimate the prevalence of breast cancer screening in older women: comparison of different methods to identify screening mammograms. (Methods).
December 1, 2002... A screening mammogram is a mammogram performed on an asymptomatic woman for the early detection of breast cancer. Most authorities recommend yearly screening mammography in women beginning at age 50, but differ at what age to stop (American...

Measuring what people value: a comparison of "attitude" and "preference" surveys.
December 1, 2002... Measuring individuals' value for health care goods, services, and interventions is a significant challenge for health care researchers. Such valuations are used for many different purposes, including setting of health priorities and policies....

Measuring preferences for health care interventions using conjoint analysis: an application to HIV testing.
December 1, 2002... Increasing the number of individuals knowing their HIV status continues to be a major public health goal (Centers for Disease Control 2001). Although the importance of early HIV testing has increased as new and effective treatments for HIV have...