Health Services Research articles from December 2007

Health Services Research archives from December 2007

Effect of critical access hospital conversion on patient safety.(Hospitals)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... The Institute of Medicine (IOM) definition of patient safety is "freedom from accidental injury due to medical care, or medical errors" (Kohn, Corrigan, and Donaldson 1999). More than 44,000 Americans die as a result of preventable medical...

Using performance data to identify preferred hospitals.(Hospitals)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Employers and health plans are experimenting with a variety of market-based approaches to improve the value of health care spending. Many have adopted or are contemplating benefit designs with tiered provider networks that differentiate...

Differences in the implementation of diagnosis-related groups across clinical departments: a German hospital case study.(Hospitals)(Author abstract)(Case study)
December 1, 2007... In 2000, a National Health Care Reform was passed in Germany which included the implementation of a Prospective Payment System for 100 percent of the inpatient cases. The new finance system is based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), a patient...

Patient outcomes and evidence-based medicine in a preferred provider organization setting: a six-year evaluation of a physician pay-for-performance program.(Quality and Outcomes)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Within the past decade, several Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports have recommended quality-based incentive programs as effective tools to improve quality of care (Kohn, Corrigan, and Donaldson 2000; IOM 2001; Corrigan, Eden, and Smith 2002)....

Does quality improvement work? Evaluation of the organ donation breakthrough collaborative.(Quality and Outcomes)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Every year there are thousands of decedents who could donate organs but do not (Sheehy et al. 2003). Many families of potential donors refuse consent, others are never asked in the first place. According to a recent estimate, the number of life...

The cost-effectiveness of improving diabetes care in U.S. federally qualified community health centers.(Quality and Outcomes)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Deficiencies in the quality of care of chronic conditions such as diabetes are well recognized as a major public health problem (Committee on Quality of Health Care in America 2001; McGlynn et al. 2003). Concerns regarding these deficiencies...

The role of product design in consumers' choices in the individual insurance market.(Health Insurance)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... The growing numbers of uninsured and rising health care costs continue to plague health policy makers. Among solutions to this problem are policies to make health insurance more affordable for those who lack group health insurance and policies...

Commentary: what is the right price in discrete choice models of health plan choice?(Health Insurance)
December 1, 2007... The paper by Marquis et al. (2007) makes a contribution to the literature on health plan choice in the nongroup market, a topic that is likely to be of continuing interest for health policy debates in the United States. However, the authors...

Commentary: what is the right price of health insurance? A rejoinder.(Health Insurance)
December 1, 2007... In his commentary on our article "The Role of Product Design in Consumers' Choices in the Individual Insurance Market," Dr. Feldman asserts that our analysis of decisions to elect insurance may be biased by our use of a premium price adjusted...

Mortality and physician supply: does region hold the key to the paradox?(Physician Supply)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Recently there has been a series of research reports that have described positive associations between the supply of primary care physicians and health outcomes (Shi 1992, 1994; Forrest and Starfield 1996; Shi et al. 2003a, b, 2005; Starfield...

Commentary: primary care and health outcomes: a health services research challenge.(Physician Supply)
December 1, 2007... The contributions of primary care to improvements in many aspects of population and individual health are well documented (Starfield, Shi, and Macinko 2005). In addition to the health benefits, there are reductions in health system costs and...

Triangulating patient and clinician perspectives on clinically important differences in health-related quality of life among patients with heart disease.(Methods Articles)(Report)
December 1, 2007... The reliance on multiple measurement strategies in health services research is motivated by the widely held belief that "the most persuasive evidence comes through a triangulation of measurement processes, as well as through minimizing the...

Pediatric patient safety events during hospitalization: approaches to accounting for institution-level effects.(Methods Articles)(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... There have been an increasing number of descriptive analyses of pediatric medical errors as the release of the Institute of Medicine reports over 5 years ago (IOM 2000, 2001, 2004). These include single and multi-institution studies, studies of...

Panel discussion: health information technology and return on investment: fact or fantasy? (1).(Academy Health Panel Reports)
December 1, 2007... Moderator: Murray N. Ross, Ph.D., Director of Health Policy Analysis and Research, Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy, Oakland, CA. Panelists: Douglas A. Conrad, Ph.D., Professor, Health Services; Professor, Dental Public Health...

Panel discussion: knowing what you are paying for: benefit design in a changing market (1).(Academy Health Panel Reports)
December 1, 2007... Introduction: The health insurance market is changing rapidly and there are concerns about rising costs, quality, and value, and the financial burden and distribution of costs among different groups. The question is: Who should pay? ...

Correction to "Cost Shifting to Jails After a Change to Managed Mental Health Care.".(Erratum)(Correction notice)
December 1, 2007... The statistical program to create estimates for the paper entitled "Cost Shifting To Jails After A Change To Managed Mental Health Care" (Domino et al. 2004) contained a typo in the inflation adjustment for year 1994 data, making the...

Editorial.
December 1, 2007... As evidenced by the popular response to the call for papers for this special issue on State Health Research and Policy, there is an abundance of state-level research being conducted across the country. The response to our call was overwhelming,...

Assessing the value of the NHIS for studying changes in state coverage policies: the case of New York.(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Lack of health insurance is a persistent problem in the U.S. health care system, with little consensus as to how to increase coverage (IOM 2004). As a result, states continue to explore alternative strategies that rely on both expansions of...

Assessing potential enrollment and budgetary effects of SCHIP premiums: findings from Arizona and Kentucky.(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... BACKGROUND Premiums have become a prominent feature of public health insurance programs for children in recent years. This trend started in the late 1990s when many states that adopted separate non-Medicaid programs required premium...

Agreement between self-reported and administrative race and ethnicity data among Medicaid enrollees in Minnesota.(Report)
December 1, 2007... Racial and ethnic disparities in health care and health outcomes are major concerns for government agencies, academic researchers, and health care practitioners. Addressing such disparities is a central goal of Healthy People 2010 (U.S....

Estimating health conditions for small areas: asthma symptom prevalence for state legislative districts.(Author abstract)(Report)
December 1, 2007... Asthma is a national and state health concern that has generated much research and policy activity. In California, an estimated 3.9 million children and adults, 11.9 percent of the state's population, reported that they had been diagnosed with...

Discontinuity of coverage for Medicaid and S-CHIP children at a transitional birthday.(Report)
December 1, 2007... The State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) was created in 1997 to expand health insurance to uninsured low-income children. States have great latitude in designing and administering their programs. Fifteen states have opted to...

Implications of the Medicaid undercount in a high-penetration Medicaid state.(Author abstract)(Survey)
December 1, 2007... Scholars and state health administrators have long noted differences in administrative enrollment records and survey-based estimates of Medicaid populations. In Louisiana, the 2005 Current Population Survey estimates Medicaid enrollments for...

Inpatient hospital utilization among the uninsured near elderly: data and policy implications for West Virginia.(Report)
December 1, 2007... This paper examines the health insurance status and inpatient hospital utilization of the near elderly within the state of West Virginia (WV). The near elderly (defined here as 50-64 year olds) have been identified by health policy researchers...