Health Services Research articles from June 2006

Health Services Research archives from June 2006

Academy health update.(AcademyHealth requests nominations of health services research)
June 1, 2006... HSR Impact Award: Call for Nominations Deadline: July 28, 2006 AcademyHealth requests nominations of health services research that has made a positive impact on health policy and/or practice. The lead researcher of the winning impact...

Taxonomy of health networks and systems: a reassessment.(Hospital and Systems)
June 1, 2006... The merger and acquisition wave of the 1990s increased dramatically the numbers of hospitals that had joined multihospital systems as well as the sizes of those systems (Spetz, Mitchell, and Seago 2000; Cuellar and Gertler 2003), sparking...

Rejoinder to taxonomy of health networks and systems: a reassessment.(Identification and classification of Health maintenance organizations)
June 1, 2006... In his commentary on the taxonomy of health systems and networks that we originally developed in Bazzoli et al. (1999) and updated through Dubbs et al. (2004), Luke raises various concerns about the underlying concepts, measures, and approaches...

Reply to the rejoinder on taxonomy of Health Networks and Systems: a reassessment.(Hospital and Systems)
June 1, 2006... I offer a brief reply to the Bazzoli, Shortell, and Dubbs thoughtful response to my critique of their taxonomy of hospital systems. The authors addressed the issue of taxonomic bias by suggesting that because only 25 percent of system...

Operational failures and interruptions in hospital nursing.(Hospital and Systems)
June 1, 2006... A growing body of evidence suggests more nursing time per patient results in better patient outcomes (Aiken et al. 2002; Kovner et al. 2002; Needleman et al. 2002). Despite this recognition, increasing patient loads (Aiken, Clarke, and Sloane...

Using public reports of patient satisfaction for hospital quality improvement.(Hospital and Systems)
June 1, 2006... Although hospitals across the country routinely measure and report patient experience and satisfaction survey data internally, until recently few comparative public reports of hospital patient satisfaction have been available. A recent review...

The effect of cuts in Medicare reimbursement on hospital mortality.(Impact of Public Reimbursement)
June 1, 2006... The Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 was introduced as a cost-saving measure that significantly cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals, physicians, home health agencies, and skilled nursing facilities, with planned net spending reductions of...

The effect of changes in hospital reimbursement on nurse staffing decisions at safety net and nonsafety net hospitals.(Identification and classification of Health maintenance organizations)
June 1, 2006... The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) led to the largest change in hospital Medicare payments since the implementation of the Prospective Payment System of 1983. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) originally forecasted a reduction of $115...

Rules for medical markets: the impact of Medicare contractors on coverage policies.(Impact of Public Reimbursement)
June 1, 2006... Organizational theorists have long called attention to the ubiquity of rules. Weber, for example, identified rules as a cornerstone of bureaucracies (Weber 1978). Rules are an efficient means of guiding behavior, either by providing actors a...

Access to health care services for the disabled elderly.(medical care services)
June 1, 2006... Elderly individuals with limitations in activities of daily living are likely to have more need for health care services compared with persons without such limitations, both because of the direct effects of such limitations as well as the...

The effect of private insurance on the health of older, working age adults: evidence from the health and retirement study.(health insurance usage)
June 1, 2006... According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45 million Americans were without health insurance in 2003 and their numbers continues to grow. Health benefits in the U.S. remain heavily employer-based with about 60 percent of all insured individuals...

Community-level uninsurance and the unmet medical needs of insured and uninsured adults.(Private Insurance and Uninsured)
June 1, 2006... The availability and affordability of health insurance is a major policy concern in the U.S. About one-fifth of the U.S. population between the ages of 18 and 64 (36.3 million) lacks health insurance and the size of this population is expected...

When to combine hypotheses and adjust for multiple tests.(methods of medical tests)
June 1, 2006... Recent issues of Health Services Research (HSR), the Journal of Health Economics, and Medical Care each contain articles that lack attention to the requirements of multiple hypotheses. The problems with multiple hypotheses are well known and...

Who searches the Internet for health information?(usage of online information services)
June 1, 2006... Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to obtain information about health and health care. Internet use has grown dramatically over the last decade (Pew Research Center 2005) and searching for health information is an important...

Geographic variation in the prescription of schedule II opioid analgesics among outpatients in the United States.(Methods)
June 1, 2006... Effective management of pain often requires the use of opioid analgesics (American Pain Society 1999, 2002; World Health Organization 2000; American Pain Society 2004). Because of their potential for abuse, opioid analgesics are regulated under...

Correction to "geographic variation in the prescription of Schedule II opioid analgesics among outpatients in the United States".(Methods)(Correction notice)
June 1, 2006... In this issue of HSR, we report findings from our analysis of geographic variations in the prescription of Schedule II opioid analgesics in the United States (Curtis et al. 2006). We write now to inform HSR readers of inaccuracies in the...

Factors influencing female registered nurses' work behavior.(Methods)
June 1, 2006... Understanding registered nurses' (RNs') work behavior could lead to interventions to modify workforce participation and hours and help to abate the cycles of RN shortages and surpluses. In 2000, about 81.7 percent of RNs were employed in...

Health policy roundtable: how are Medicaid and SCHIP weathering the storm?(State Children's Health Insurance Program)
June 1, 2006... Chair: Alan Weil, Executive Director and President, National Academy for State Health Policy. Panelists: Teresa Coughlin, Principal Research Associate, Health Policy Project, Urban Institute. Deborah Florio, Administrator, Family and...

Health policy roundtable: producing and adapting research syntheses for use by health-system managers and public policymakers.(public opinion of health services)
June 1, 2006... Chair. Carolyn Clancy, M.D., is the Director for the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. Panelists: Linda Bilheimer, Ph.D., Associate Director, Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics within the...

Toward a more reliable federal survey for tracking health insurance coverage and access.(State Children's Health Insurance Program)
June 1, 2006... According to the most recent estimates from the Current Population Survey (CPS), approximately 45.5 million nonelderly Americans lack health insurance--long a major national issue that promises to remain so (Denavas-Walt, Proctor, and Lee...

Meeting the need for state-level estimates of health insurance coverage: use of state and federal survey data.(usage of health insurance)
June 1, 2006... States have collected their own survey data for many years but only recently has their need for data been more acute. This is due in part to new pressures to expand health insurance coverage through the State Children's Health Insurance Program...

Commentary--how to improve federal health data for coverage, access, and state-specific needs.(analysis of classification)
June 1, 2006... The health research and policy communities have made significant progress in recent years in improving the data and analysis needed by federal, state, and local officials to guide policymaking on the uninsured. If the United States provided...

Commentary--improving federal health data: the essential partnership between researcher and policy maker.(health care information services)
June 1, 2006... The two papers by Blewett and Davern (2006) and Kenney, Holahan, and Nichols (2006) in the special section of this issue discuss the collection of large representative samples to monitor health, health care, and coverage of the population from...

Overview and commentary.(management of health insurance)
June 1, 2006... The impetus to create the CHBRP began in 2002 when the California State Legislature took an important step to enhance the evaluation of bills related to health insurance benefits by passing Assembly Bill (AB) 1996 (Thomson, Statutes of 2002,...

Evaluating medical effectiveness for the California Health Benefits Review Program.(analysis of classifications)
June 1, 2006... INTRODUCTION Under the provisions of Assembly Bill (AB) 1996 (California Health and Safety Code Section 127660 et seq.), the State Legislature may ask the University of California to assess legislation proposing mandated health care...

The California cost and coverage model: analyses of the financial impacts of benefit mandates for the California legislature.(health maintenance organizations)
June 1, 2006... The California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP) is charged by the California legislature with estimating the medical effectiveness, public health, and cost implications of proposed health benefit mandates. Cost implications include...

Assessing the public health impact of state health benefit mandates.(statistics of hip fractures)
June 1, 2006... In the early 1990s, when the U.S. was considering comprehensive health care reform legislation under the Clinton Administration, public health professionals rallied to demand that the public's health be a key consideration in the redesign of...

An analysis of California Assembly Bill 2185: mandating coverage of pediatric asthma self-management training and education.(risk factor of childhood asthma)
June 1, 2006... In February 2004, the California State Assembly introduced Assembly Bill (AB) 2185 that would require health service plans regulated and licensed by the California Department of Managed Care, as provided in the Knox-Keene Health Care Services...

A comparative analysis of mandated benefit laws, 1949-2002.(health maintenance organizations)
June 1, 2006... Individuals are likely to have more information about their potential need for care than insurers, so the latter have concerns that potential enrollees seeking coverage may be at greater than average risk. This information asymmetry creates...

State-mandated benefit review laws.(health maintenance organizations)
June 1, 2006... A state legislator considers a proposal that would require health plans to cover screening for prostate cancer. While she recognizes that prostate cancer is an important problem and that mandating coverage can help increase...

Health services research as a source of legislative analysis and input: the role of the California Health Benefits Review Program.
June 1, 2006... The great significance of the growing role of experts in the democratic process is not, as is often feared, their ability to manipulate elected representatives and gain irresponsible control over the routine operations of public...