Health Services Research articles from October 2007

Health Services Research archives from October 2007

Health policy orientation.(AcademyHealth Update)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... With a one-to-one ratio of faculty to participants, the orientation offers an in-depth understanding of formal and informal policymaking processes and the players who shape health policy. The Orientation provides a behind-the-scenes look at...

National Health Policy Conference.(AcademyHealth Update)(Conference news)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Registration opens October 1 AcademyHealth invites you to share your perspective on what's shaping the nation's policy agenda at the National Health Policy Conference, February 4-5, 2008. Join leading experts from the administration,...

AcademyHealth Methods Council.(AcademyHealth Update)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The AcademyHealth Methods Council, chaired by Brian Dowd of the University of Minnesota, continues to work to build awareness and understanding of the variety of analytic methods used in health services research. The Council is composed of...

Annual Research Meeting (ARM).(AcademyHealth Update)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Washington, D.C. will host next year's 25th Annual Research Meeting (ARM). Mark your calendars with the following dates to remember: * November 1--Call for Abstracts opens * January 15--Abstracts due * June 8-10--2008 Annual...

Commentary: a progress report on AHRQ's Effective Health Care Program.(AHRQ Update)
October 1, 2007... In previous issues of this journal we have described the authorization and structure of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ's) Effective Health Care Program (Clancy, Slutsky, and Patton 2004). In this issue, we would like to update...

The performance of performance measurement.(Editorial)
October 1, 2007... Continued increases in health care expenditures, coupled with incontrovertible evidence of a substantial gap between the best possible care and that which is routinely delivered, have motivated a growing interest in the use of performance...

Mortality of Department of Veterans Affairs patients undergoing coronary revascularization in private sector hospitals.(Quality and Outcomes)(Author abstract)(Report)
October 1, 2007... A number of studies over the past two decades have compared outcomes in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and private sector hospitals (Department of Veterans Affairs 1987, 1989, 1991, 2003; Rosenthal, Larimer, and Owens 1994; Gordon et al....

The influence of staffing characteristics on quality of care in nursing homes.(Quality and Outcomes)(Author abstract)(Report)
October 1, 2007... In recent years, workforce characteristics have become ever more salient issues in the long-term care industry (Stone 2004). Policy makers and researchers alike, recognize that caregivers in long-term care are an essential linchpin in helping...

A systematic review of measures of end-of-life care and its outcomes.(Quality and Outcomes)(Author abstract)(Report)
October 1, 2007... For the vast majority of Americans, the end of life includes a prolonged experience of chronic progressive disease, often associated with uncertainty, pain, suffering, and cost (Hogan et al. 2000; Lunney et al. 2003; National Consensus Project...

Time allocation in primary care office visits.(Physician and Patient Behavior)(Author abstract)
October 1, 2007... Time is a scarce resource in a physician's office practice. How physicians use clinic time has important implications for quality of care, patient trust (Fiscella et al. 2004), malpractice suits (Levinson et al. 1997), and is one of the bases...

Factors associated with the income distribution of full-time physicians: a quantile regression approach.(Physician and Patient Behavior)
October 1, 2007... Physicians in the United States are generally well compensated, with a median annual income of $175,000 (Kane and Loeblich 2003), nearly seven times the $25,279 that a typical salaried worker earns (U.S. Census Bureau 2002). Yet, with a...

The effect of three-tier formulary adoption on medication continuation and spending among elderly retirees.(Physician and Patient Behavior)
October 1, 2007... Incentive formularies are commonly used by private health plans in an attempt to control rising prescription drug costs. Incentive formularies provide financial incentives (i.e., lower copayments) for patients to choose drugs that are less...

Cost-effectiveness of diabetes case management for low-income populations.(Cost and Effectiveness)(Author abstract)(Report)
October 1, 2007... Diabetes is a common and costly chronic disease that increasingly affects low-income and minority populations (Hogan, Dall, and Nikolov 2003). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that the lifetime risk of developing...

Public savings from the prevention of unintended pregnancy: a cost analysis of family planning services in California.(Cost and Effectiveness)
October 1, 2007... Medicaid, the United States' largest health program and source of federal support to states, contributed $770 million toward family planning services in 2001, making it the single largest source of public dollars for family planning services...

Medicaid markets and pediatric patient safety in hospitals.(Patient Safety)
October 1, 2007... In 1999, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM), To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, estimated that preventable medical errors were responsible for between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths and that the total costs of preventable errors...

Workforce perceptions of hospital safety culture: development and validation of the Patient Safety Climate in Healthcare Organizations survey.(Patient Safety)(Survey)
October 1, 2007... Since the Institute of Medicine's identification of safety culture as a key determinant of the ability of health care organizations to address and reduce risks to patients due to medical care (Institute of Medicine 2001), initiatives to improve...

Missing in action: care by physician assistants and nurse practitioners in national health surveys.(Methods)(Author abstract)(Survey)
October 1, 2007... National health and health care surveys provide essential information for health care delivery system analysis and planning. However, because many are oriented toward traditional physician care, they may not accurately reflect the growing...

Are the Current Population Survey uninsurance estimates too high? An examination of the imputation process.(Methods)(Author abstract)
October 1, 2007... The U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) provides the most visible estimate of the number of uninsured people in the United States. The ASEC has become the survey of record for...

Evaluation of three algorithms to identify incident breast cancer in Medicare claims data.(Methods)(Survey)
October 1, 2007... Researchers studying the quality of cancer care in the United States have noted disparities by geography, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Prior studies to examine these differences have relied on large secondary databases and chart...

Quality by any other name?: a comparison of three profiling systems for assessing health care quality.(Performance Measurement)(Report)
October 1, 2007... Although the number of performance measures that are used to monitor and compare the quality of health care organizations continues to proliferate, we know little about the extent to which results from the many current methods to measure...

Correction to "constructs of burden of illness in older patients with breast cancer: a comparison of measurement methods".(Erratum)(Correction notice)
October 1, 2007... Jeanne S. Mandelblatt, Arlene S. Bierman, Karen Gold, Yi Zhang, Judy H. Ng, Nancy Maserejan, Yi-Ting Hwang, Neal J. Meropol, Jack Hadley, and Rebecca A. Silliman. Article originally published in HSR Volume 36, Number 6, Part 1, December 2001....