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Patient engagement strategies can equip patients with tools to navigate treatment decisions and improve patient-centered outcomes. Despite increased recognition about the importance of patient engagement, little is known about the extent of physician practice adoption of patient engagement strategies nationally.We analyzed data collected from the National Survey of Healthcare Organizations and Systems (NSHOS) on physician practice adoption of patient engagement strategies. Stratified-cluster sampling was used to select physician practices operating under different organizational structures. Multivariable linear regression models estimated the association of practice ownership, health information technology functionality, use of screening activities, patient responsiveness, chronic care management processes, and the adoption of patient engagement strategies, including shared decision-making, motivational interviewing, and shared medical appointments. All regression models controlled for participation in payment reforms, practice size, Medicaid revenue percentage, and geographic region.We found modest and varied adoption of patient engagement strategies by practices of different ownership types, with health system-owned practices having the lowest adoption of ownership types. Practice capabilities, including chronic care management processes, routine screening of medical and social risks, and patient care dissemination strategies were associated with greater practice-level adoption of patient engagement strategies.This national study is the first to characterize the adoption of patient engagement strategies by US physician practices. We found modest adoption of shared decision-making and motivational interviewing, and low adoption of shared medical appointments. Risk-based payment reform has the potential to motivate greater practice-level patient engagement, but the extent to which it occurs may depend on internal practice capabilities.

Background Care for patients with chronic conditions often requires coordination between multiple physicians and delivery sites. Electronic Health Record (EHR) use could improve care quality and efficiency in part by facilitating care coordination. Objective We examined the association between EHR use and clinician perceptions of care coordination for patients transferred across clinicians and delivery sites. Research design Repeated surveys of primary care clinicians during the staggered implementation of an outpatient EHR (2005-2008), followed by an integrated inpatient EHR (2006-2010). We measured the association between EHR use stages (no use, outpatient EHR only, and integrated inpatient-outpatient EHR) and care coordination using logistic regression, adjusting for clinician characteristics, study year, and medical center. Subjects Adult primary care clinicians in a large Integrated Delivery System. Measures Three measures of clinician-reported care coordination for patient care transferred across clinicians (eg, from specialist to primary care team) and across delivery sites (eg, from the hospital to outpatient care). Results Outpatient EHR use was associated with higher reports of access to complete and timely clinical information and higher agreement on clinician roles and responsibilities for patients transferred across clinicians, but not for patients transferred across delivery sites. Use of the integrated outpatient-inpatient EHR was associated with higher reports of access to timely and complete clinical information, clinician agreement on the patient's treatment plan for patients transferred across delivery sites, and with all coordination measures for patients transferred across clinicians. Conclusion Use of an integrated EHR with health information exchange across delivery settings improved patient care coordination.

Background Strategies to enhance appointment access are being adopted by medical practices as part of patient-centered medical home (PCMH) implementation, but little is known about the use of these strategies nationally. Objectives We examine practice use of open access scheduling and after-hours care. Research design Data were analyzed from the Third National Study of Physician Organizations (NSPO3) to examine which enhanced appointment access strategies are more likely to be used by practices with more robust PCMH capabilities and with greater external incentives. Logistic regression estimated the effect of PCMH capabilities and external incentives on practice use of open access scheduling and after-hours care. Subjects Physician organizations with >20% primary care physicians (n=1106). Measures PCMH capabilities included team-based care, health information technology capabilities, quality improvement orientation, and patient experience orientation. External incentives included public reporting, pay-for-performance (P4P), and accountable care organization participation. Results A low percentage of practices (19.8%) used same-day open access scheduling, while after-hours care (56.1%) was more common. In adjusted analyses, system-owned practices and practices with greater use of team-based care, health information technology capabilities, and public reporting were more likely to use open access scheduling. Accountable care organization-affiliated practices and practices with greater use of public reporting and P4P were more likely to provide after-hours care. Conclusions Open access scheduling may be most effectively implemented by practices with robust PCMH capabilities. External incentives appear to influence practice adoption of after-hours care. Expanding open access scheduling and after-hours care will require distinct policies and supports.

The importance of teams for improving quality of care has received increased attention. We examine both the correlates of self-assessed or perceived team effectiveness and its consequences for actually making changes to improve care for people with chronic illness. STUDY SETTING AND METHODS: Data were obtained from 40 teams participating in the national evaluation of the Improving Chronic Illness Care Program. Based on current theory and literature, measures were derived of organizational culture, a focus on patient satisfaction, presence of a team champion, team composition, perceived team effectiveness, and the actual number and depth of changes made to improve chronic illness care.A focus on patient satisfaction, the presence of a team champion, and the involvement of the physicians on the team were each consistently and positively associated with greater perceived team effectiveness. Maintaining a balance among culture values of participation, achievement, openness to innovation, and adherence to rules and accountability also appeared to be important. Perceived team effectiveness, in turn, was consistently associated with both a greater number and depth of changes made to improve chronic illness care. The variables examined explain between 24 and 40% of the variance in different dimensions of perceived team effectiveness; between 13% and 26% in number of changes made; and between 20% and 42% in depth of changes made.The data suggest the importance of developing effective teams for improving the quality of care for patients with chronic illness.

To assess the impact of total quality management (TQM) and organizational culture on a comprehensive set of endpoints of care for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) patients, including risk-adjusted adverse outcomes, clinical efficiency, patient satisfaction, functional health status, and cost of care.Prospective cohort study of 3,045 eligible CABG patients from 16 hospitals using risk-adjusted clinical outcomes, functional health status, patient satisfaction, and cost measures. Implementation of TQM was measured by a previously validated instrument based on the Baldridge national quality award criteria. Organizational culture was measured by a previously validated 20-item instrument. Generalized estimating equations were used to control for potential selection bias, repeated measures, and intraclass correlation.A 2- to 4-fold difference in all major clinical CABG care endpoints was observed among the 16 hospitals, but little of this variation was associated with TQM or organizational culture. Patients receiving CABG from hospitals with high TQM scores were more satisfied with their nursing care (P = 0.005) but were more likely to have lengths of stay10 days (P = 0.0003). A supportive group culture was associated with shorter postoperative intubation times (P = 0.01) but longer operating room times (P = 0.004). A supportive group culture was also associated with higher patient physical (P = 0.005) and mental (P = 0.01) functional health status scores 6 months after CABG.There was little effect of TQM and organizational culture on multiple endpoints of care for CABG patients. There is a need to examine further the relationships among individual professional skills and motivations, group and microsystem team processes, specifically tailored interventions, and organization-wide culture, decision support processes, and incentives. Assessing the impact of such multifaceted approaches is an important area for further research.

Major organizational changes among hospitals, like system affiliation, merger, and closure, would seem to offer substantial opportunities for hospitals and health systems to be strategic in the local reconfiguration of health services. This report presents the results of a unique survey on what happened to hospitals after mergers occurring between 1983 and 1988, inclusive. Building on an ongoing verification process of the American Hospital Association, surviving institutions from all 74 mergers that occurred during the study frame were surveyed in the fall of 1991. Responses were received from 60 of the 74 mergers (81%), regarding the primary, postmerger use of the hospitals involved. Topics surveyed included the premerger competition between the hospitals and in their environment, and what happened to the hospitals after their mergers. Mergers frequently served to convert acute, inpatient capacity to other functions, with less than half of acquired hospitals continuing acute services after merger. In the context of health care reform, mergers may offer an expeditious way locally to restructure health services. Evidence on the postmerger uses of hospitals and about the reasons given for merger suggests that mergers may reflect two general strategies: elimination of direct acute competitors or expansion of acute care networks.

O RIGINAL A RTICLE Improving Chronic Illness Care A Longitudinal Cohort Analysis of Large Physician Organizations Stephen M. Shortell, PhD, MBA, MPH,* Robin Gillies, PhD,* Juned Siddique, DrPH,† Lawrence P. Casalino, MD, PhD,‡ Diane Rittenhouse, MD, MPH,§ James C. Robinson, PhD,* and Rodney K. McCurdy, MHA* Background: An increasing number of people suffer from chronic illness. Processes exist to provide better chronic illness care and yet for the most part, they are not used. Objective: To examine the change in use of commonly recom- mended chronic illness care management processes (CMPs) in large medical groups between 2000 and 2006 and the factors associated with the change. Design and Measures: Cohort analysis of data from a national telephone survey in year 2000 and again in 2006. Participants provided information on their organizations’ ownership, size, use of defined chronic illness CMPs, financial incentives, quality improvement in- volvement, profitability, and use of electronic medical records. Setting: Medical groups and independent practice associations of 20 physicians or more (N ⫽ 369) that treat patients with asthma, congestive heart failure, depression, and diabetes, and that re- sponded to the survey in 2000 and 2006. Results: Use of CMP increased from 6.25 to 7.67 (of a total of 17; P ⱕ 0.001), that is, by 23%, between 2000 and 2006. Increases were greatest for those practices receiving financial rewards for quality; those participating in quality improvement activities; and those practices that were profitable. Most of the increase was in use of registries and in patient self-management support services. Conclusions: There is significant opportunity for improving chronic illness care even in larger physician organizations. Public policies that promote financial rewards for improving quality and that en- courage quality improvement initiatives are likely to be associated with improved chronic illness care. Key Words: chronic illness, chronic care model, quality improvement, financial incentives (Med Care 2009;47: 932–939) From the *Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA; †Department of Preven- tive Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL; ‡Department of Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY; and §Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Cali- fornia, San Francisco, CA. Supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, grant 51573; the Common- wealth Fund, grant 20050334; and California Healthcare Foundation, Reprints: Stephen M. Shortell, PhD, MBA, MPH, School of Public Health 50 University Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720. E-mail: shortell@berkeley.edu. Copyright © 2009 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins ISSN: 0025-7079/09/4709-0932 | www.lww-medicalcare.com A pproximately, 20 million Americans suffer from asthma; 5 million from congestive heart failure; 26 million from depression; and 21 million from diabetes. 1– 4 Collectively, these 4 chronic illnesses amount to $149 billion in direct costs and $286 billion in total costs annually. 1– 4 In recent years evidence has begun to emerge that the use by medical groups of organized care management processes (CMPs) to care for patients with these diseases improves the quality and out- comes of care. 5–9 Yet, many Americans do not receive such care 10 and many physician practices do not use recommended processes for managing patients with chronic illness. 11 These processes include use of disease registries that enable physician organizations to identify their patients with chronic illnesses; development of patient education programs to help patients better manage their illnesses; use of nurse care managers for the sickest patients with the most complex needs; providing feedback to physicians on their performance; providing physicians and patients with reminders and decision support information at the time of care; and related items. These processes are key elements of the chronic care model. 12–15 We examine whether greater use of these processes occurs when physician organizations have the capabilities to create and maintain them and when they are given incentives to invest in improving quality. In 2000, we created a national database to survey all large medical groups (20 or more physicians) and independent practice associations (IPAs) in the United States. We conducted a follow-up survey in 2006 to address 2 questions: has the use of CMPs increased among these organizations since 2000; and, if it has, what have been the factors associated with the increase? We hypothesized that organizations that became or remained owned by a hospital/health maintenance organiza- tion (HMO)/or health system, as opposed to independent physician ownership, would increase their CMP use due to the greater financial resources likely to be available to them. We predicted that those that became or remained medical groups would increase their use of CMPs more than IPAs due to the medical groups’ tighter degree of integration than the gen- erally more loosely organized IPAs. We also hypothesized that organizations that became or remained profitable, increased their participation in organized quality improvement efforts, and/or increased their electronic medical record (EMR) ca- pability would be more likely to increase their use of CMPs than organizations remaining less profitable, those not partic- Medical Care • Volume 47, Number 9, September 2009

Health care systems have developed many types of contracting vehicles with physicians. The immediate aim of these vehicles has been to foster physician commitment and alignment to the system. The ultimate aim of these vehicles has been to garner managed care contracts, reduce costs, and improve quality. To date, most of these vehicles have failed to improve physician commitment. This may be one reason why the ultimate outcomes have not been observed. Consequently, systems are experimenting with new methods to partner with physicians. One new method is to segment physicians into tightly linked and loosely linked strategic alliances and devote different levels of resources and attention to each.This study evaluates whether the segmentation of physicians into tightly linked versus loosely linked strategic alliances improves the commitment of physicians to the system. The study then investigates which constituent elements of the tightly linked strategic alliances exhibit the greatest association with commitment. DESIGNS AND SUBJECTS: The study uses a cross-sectional design and survey data drawn from 1,965 physicians affiliated with 14 health care systems around the country. Tightly linked physicians typically practiced in hospital-sponsored group practices, whereas loosely linked physicians typically used the system's hospitals as their primary site of inpatient practice.Commitment is measured by seven different scales drawn from the literature on organizational commitment, loyalty, and identification. Some of the scales refer to physician attitudes, whereas others describe physician behaviors. The literature suggests that commitment is associated with both instrumental/utilitarian considerations (eg, older age, tenure with system, admissions to system, receipt of a stipend, etc.) as well as administrative involvement/participation considerations (eg, decision-making roles). A series of physician background and practice characteristics are used here to model these two types of factors.The study finds small but significant differences in commitment between physicians in tightly linked versus loosely linked alliances. Multivariate analyses suggest that instrumental/utilitarian factors (eg, age, receipt of stipend, percent of admissions to the system) may exhibit stronger associations with commitment than the physician's administrative involvement in the organization.To the degree that physician commitment is possible, systems should appeal to physicians' calculative motivations using extrinsic rewards rather than normative involvement in the organization.

BACKGROUND Enthusiasm for the concept of care management (CM) has led to unprecedented growth in the number of guidelines and protocols, but provider organizations have struggled to enlist the active support and participation of physicians in CM activities. OBJECTIVES To empirically examine the factors influencing physician participation in and attitudes toward CM activities. METHODS Data on 1,514 physicians were used to predict physician attitudes toward CM and their perceptions of group CM behaviors. Dependent variables were modeled using two-stage Heckman selection bias models with fixed effects corrections. Independent predictors included physician- and group-level controls as well as six potential CM participation and attitude facilitators. RESULTS Physician participation in the implementation phase of CM activities was positively related to participation and attitude. However, physician participation in the development phase may be negatively related to later participation in CM activities. Management involvement in development phase has mixed effects (positive or no effect), but their involvement in the implementation phase was somewhat negatively related to CM participation and attitude. Financial incentives for participation in CM activities and presence of a useful management information system also appeared to be positively related to attitude and participation. CONCLUSIONS Appropriate physician and management involvement, as well as financial incentives and useful management information systems may facilitate physician participation in CM activities. Physician involvement in implementation of CM practices appears to be important, whereas their involvement in the development phase may be negatively related to later attitudes and participation. The findings call for a more in-depth understanding of the timing of physician input in CM activities.

A significant portion of health care resources are spent in intensive care units with, historically, up to two-fold variation in risk-adjusted mortality. Technological, demographic, and social forces are likely to lead to an increased volume of intensive care in the future. Thus, it is important to identify ways of more efficiently managing intensive care units and reducing the variation in patient outcomes. Based on data collected from 17,440 patients across 42 ICUs, the present study examines the factors associated with risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted average length of stay, nurse turnover, evaluated technical quality of care, and evaluated ability to meet family member needs. Using the Apache III methodology for risk-adjustment, findings reveal that: 1) technological availability is significantly associated with lower risk-adjusted mortality (beta = -.42); 2) diagnostic diversity is significantly associated with greater risk-adjusted mortality (beta = .46); and 3) caregiver interaction comprising the culture, leadership, coordination, communication, and conflict management abilities of the unit is significantly associated with lower risk-adjusted length of stay (beta = .34), lower nurse turnover (beta = -.36), higher evaluated technical quality of care (beta = .81), and greater evaluated ability to meet family member needs (beta = .74). Furthermore, units with greater technological availability are significantly more likely to be associated with hospitals that are more profitable, involved in teaching activities, and have unit leaders actively participating in hospital-wide quality improvement activities. The findings hold a number of important managerial and policy implications regarding technological adoption, specialization, and the quality of interaction among ICU team members. They suggest intervention "leverage points" for care givers, managers, and external policy makers in efforts to continuously improve the outcomes of intensive care.

Health Services Research has a growing need for reliable and valid measures of managerial practices and organizational processes. A national study of 42 intensive care units involving over 1,700 respondents provides evidence for the reliability and validity of a comprehensive set of measures related to leadership, organizational culture, communication, coordination, problem solving-conflict management and team cohesiveness. The data also support the appropriateness of aggregating individual respondent data to the unit level. Implications for further research are discussed.

The papers in this Special Supplement are based on research funded by the participating members of the joint Center for Health Management Research (CHMR) and Center for Organized Delivery Systems (CODS), and supported by the National Science Foundation under its Industry-University Cooperative Research Center Program. This 3-year research initiative from 1996 through 1999 involved 69 physician organizations (primarily organized medical groups as opposed to IPAs) associated with 14 organized delivery systems. The groups ranged in size from three to 958 with an average size of 76.4 and a median size of 25.0. Comparisons of the study groups with United States physician groups overall are shown in Table 1. The study groups are larger and more likely to be multispecialty than all groups in the United States. The organized delivery systems range in size from one hospital to 80 hospitals with an average of 21 hospitals per system and a median of 11 hospitals per system. They average 4.6 affiliated medical groups with a range from one to 23. The organized delivery systems range in total revenues in 1998 from $340 million to $6.2 billion with an average of $2.1 billion. All the study systems are not-for-profit. Most are located in single market areas, but several are located in multiple markets. For the most part, they represent some of the larger most experienced organized delivery systems in the country. Among the primary objectives of the study was to identify the factors most strongly associated with physician alignment with the health care system and the consequences for the implementation of evidence-based care management practices. The study was also designed to identify the barriers and facilitators to achieving such alignment and its consequences.

Objectives. To examine the association between the degree of alignment between physicians and health care systems, and interorganizational linkages between physician groups and health care systems. Methods. The study used a cross sectional, comparative analysis using a sample of 1,279 physicians practicing in loosely affiliated arrangements and 1,781 physicians in 61 groups closely affiliated with 14 vertically integrated health systems. Measures of physician alignment were based on multiitem scales validated in previous studies and derived from surveys sent to individual physicians. Measures of interorganizational linkages were specified at the institutional, administrative, and technical core levels of the physician group and were developed from surveys sent to the administrator of each of the 61 physician groups in the sample. Two stage Heckman models with fixed effects adjustments in the second stage were used to correct for sample selection and clustering respectively. Results. After accounting for sample selection, fixed effects, and group and individual controls, physicians in groups with more valued practice service linkages display consistently higher alignment with systems than physicians in groups that have fewer such linkages. Results also suggest that centralized administrative control lowers physician-system alignment for selected measures of alignment. Governance interlocks exhibited only weak associations with alignment. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that alignment generally follows resource exchanges that promote value-added contributions to physicians and physician groups while preserving control and authority within the group.

Objectives To identify the barriers, facilitators, and potential better practices to achieving physician-system alignment. Methods Interviews using a semi-structured, open-ended protocol were conducted during a total of 18 site visits, each usually 2 days in length, covering multiple topics of physician group-system alignment. Interviews were conducted with members of the target physician group, key leaders of the health care system, and representatives of physicians not in the target group. The summary of the interviews for each of the site visits was analyzed to determine barriers, facilitators, and better practices for achieving more effective relationships between physician groups and health care systems. Results A number of barriers to more effective relationships between physician groups and health systems were identified. Barriers related to environment, culture, and information systems were most prevalent. Other major general areas of barriers encountered were physician leadership, group-system relationship, compensation and productivity, care management practices, group strategy, and accountability. Examples of practices that may help to resolve some of these issues were also identified. Conclusions Physician-system relationships can and do cause problems for improving health care. The evidence from the conducted site visits suggests that specific strategies may help improve these relationships but more research is needed in order assess the actual impact of these strategies.

Objectives. To assess the extent to which market pressures, compensation incentives, and physician medical group culture are associated with the use of evidence-based medicine practices in physician organizations. Methods. Cross-sectional exploratory study of 56 medical groups affiliated with 15 integrated health systems from across the United States, involving 1,797 physician respondents. Larger medical groups and multispecialty groups were overrepresented compared with the United States as a whole. Data are from two sources: (1) surveys of physicians assessing the culture of the medical groups in which they work, and (2) surveys of medical directors and other managerial key informants pertaining to care management practices, compensation methods, and the management and governance of the medical groups. Physician-level data were aggregated to the group level to attain measures of group culture and then merged with the data regarding care management, incentives, and management and governance. Stepwise multiple regression was used to examine the study hypotheses. Results. As hypothesized, the number of different types of compensation incentives used (cost containment, productivity, quality) was positively associated with the comprehensiveness of care management practices. The degree of salary control (ie, market-based salary grades and ranges versus the use of bookings or fees and individual negotiation) was also positively associated with the deployment of care management practices. As hypothesized, market pressures in the form of percentages of health maintenance and preferred provider organization patients seen were generally positively associated with the use of care management practices. Organizational culture had no association except that a patient-centered culture in combination with a greater number of different types of compensation incentives used was positively associated with greater use of care management practices. Conclusions. Both compensation incentives and managed care market pressures were significantly associated with the use of evidence-based care management practices. The lack of association for culture may be due to the relatively amorphous nature of most physician organizations at this point.

The physician's important decision-making role in the allocation of medical resources is well recognized. An important part of this role is one physician's decision to refer a patient to another physician for care. Existing research, largely descriptive in nature, has been limited by lack of a clear theoretical and conceptual framework for analysis. The current paper develops and tests a model of physician referral behavior based on exchange theory. Differences in rates of referral among physicians are viewed as a function of the different rewards and costs perceived by physicians occupying different levels of status within a given medical community. The model is tested using data collected from 127 internists in private practice in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Findings are discussed in terms of policy issues and suggestions for further research are indicated.

Continuity of medical care is conceived as the extent to which services are received as part of a coordinated and uninterrupted succession of events consistent with the medical care needs of patients. Two operational measures are proposed, based on the Gini and CON indices of concentration. Examples of their application are provided using the 1970 CHAS-NORC national study of health services utilization. The validity of the proposed measures is assessed in a preliminary fashion, and some commonly held assumptions about the relationship between access, quality, and continuity of care are challenged. Advantages of the proposed measures include their ability to summarize a distribution, the availability of data for construction, the relative ease of computation and interpretation, and their sensitivity to organizational changes in the delivery of health services.

A causal model of health services which includes patient and provider variables, perceived access to care, utilization of services, continuity of care, technical quality of the care process, technical quality of the care outcome, and patient satisfaction is applied to a group of diabetic patients enrolled in the Seattle Prepaid Health Care Project. The enrollees received comprehensive health services at zero out-of-pocket cost from either a prepaid group practice plan or an independent practice plan. Surveys were periodically conducted to determine health status, satisfaction, and demographic characteristics of the enrollees; utilization of services was monitored throughout the experiment. The causal model is operationalized through the use of path analysis. Significant relationships (p less than or equal to .10) were established between satisfaction and perceived access to care, family size, sex, and professional qualifications of the provider; between outcome of care and health status, female education, and physician performance; between physician performance and professional qualifications; between continuity of care and health status and female education; between utilization and perceived access, specialty of provider, and provider system; and between access to care and provider system. The policy implications of the results are discussed.

This article examines the relationships among hospital structural characteristics, individual physician characteristics, medical staff organization characteristics and quality of care for two conditions: acute myocardial infarction and appendicitis. Using data obtained from the Commission on Professional and Hospital Activities (CPHA), approximately 50,000 acute myocardial infarction cases and 8,183 appendectomy cases collected from 96 hospitals in the East North Central Region of the country (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin) were examined. These data were merged with medical staff organization and related data on hospital characteristics obtained from the American Hospital Association. The results indicate that such medical staff organization factors as involvement of the medical staff president with the hospital governing board, overall physician participation in hospital decision making, frequency of medical staff committee meetings and percentage of active staff physicians on contract are positively associated with higher quality-of-care outcomes, independent of the effects of hospital and physician characteristics. Further, the medical staff organization factors appear to be somewhat more strongly associated with higher quality-of-care outcomes than the hospital and physician characteristics. For acute myocardial infarction, higher volume of patients treated per family practitioner and internist and presence of a coronary care unit were also associated with better outcomes. Given the restricted number of conditions studied, the geographically limited sample and the fact that specific variables were not consistently related to quality of care for both conditions, the results area viewed as preliminary. However, they are consistent with and extend other developing findings in this area. They also suggest that more attention needs to be given to the organization of the hospital medical staff and its articulation with the overall hospital decision-making structure and process in attempts to improve outcomes of hospitalization.

At the national level there has been a desire to assure that individuals have access to effective personal medical care services. Accordingly, there has been an interest in linking policies on access to care to the health needs of diverse population groups. This article critiques three measures of access linked to health status: the Use-Disability Ratio, the Symptoms-Response Ratio, and the Episode of Illness Analysis. Their utility in determining whether a given level of health-service utilization is appropriate for the optimization of health status in a population is considered. As part of this task, we review the concept of health, its measurement, and data on the relationship between changes in utilization and changes in health status. Although the Use-Disability ratio may be a useful instrument to measure access equity, it appears less suited for the purpose stated above. Elements of both the Symptoms-Response Ratio and the Episode of Illness Analysis appear better suited for this purpose. Recommendations are provided on 1) the scope of services that should be included in a comprehensive construct designed to assess access related to health status, and 2) the required research to develop such a construct.

Many federally financed programs have been launched to improve the access of the poor to medical care, under the assumption that this will improve their health. The effectiveness of these programs, however, has generally been measured by increased utilization rather than by improved health. The few studies which have considered health status have shown small or negative effects. Here, data are presented from a project which provided fully prepaid care to near poor families through existing sources in the community. A group of 748 enrollees was found to report worse health on four of five health indicators after one year of enrollment in the program; further, they appeared sicker on all five measures than a group without free medical care. It is suggested: 1) that the impact of health programs on the health of a population is a complex and poorly understood issue; and 2) that increasing access to health care may not be an effective way to improve health. WITH THE ADVENT of rapidly increasing medical care costs and the preponderance of studies which show that health problems most affect the less educated, poorer and older members of society, many programs such as Medicaid, Neighborhood Health Centers and Rural Health Programs have been planned to expand government services in the financing and provision of health care. An assumption implicit in this expansion is that, since the availability of and accessibility to some (minimum) level of health services is clearly necessary for

Mental health services were included in comprehensive benefits available with no out-of-pocket expenses to enrollees in the Seattle Prepaid Health Care Project. This study was designed to examine the characteristics of users as compared to nonusers of mental health services and to examine the possibility of lower use of somatic health services attributable to the availability of mental health services. Two enrollee groups were studied: one group included enrollees with at least one mental health service (MH-U) and the other included those with some somatic utilization but without mental health utilization (MH-NU). Results indicated that mental health users were different from nonusers based on sociodemographic, health status, and prior utilization measures. Further, the mental health utilizers consumed more somatic services than other enrollees, even controlling for background variables. The visit and admission rates for the MH-U group were 2.4 times that of the MH-NU group, and total inpatient and outpatient costs were three times as high. On all three comparisons, approximately 60 per cent of the difference was accounted for by mental health utilization and by differences in sociodemographic and health status characteristics. The remaining 40 per cent could not be explained, but there is a suggestion that the higher utilization occurred for conditions where medical care is discretionary.

This study examines the impact of corporate arrangements on the hospital-physician relationship. Specifically, it investigates the effects of for-profit ownership and membership in a multihospital system on physician inclusion (salaried employment, hospital-based practice) and participation (involvement in governance and management). Contrary to common perceptions and several hypotheses drawn from the literature, corporate arrangements are associated with low physician inclusion and high participation. There is no indication that corporatization of healthcare restricts the physician's freedom of movement or decision-making role. It is instead argued that health care corporations do just the opposite in order to please physicians, promote physician welfare, and to gain legitimacy.

Using data from the 1973 American Hospital Association national survey of hospital medical staff organization, six factors of medical staff organization structure are examined in relation to each other and to hospital ownership, size, teaching status, geographic region and size of Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). The six factors include 1) Resource Capability; 2) Generalist Physician Contractual Orientation; 3) Communication and Control; 4) Local Staff Orientation; 5) Physician Participation in Decision Making; and 6) Hospital-Based Contractual Orientation. Several relatively distinct patterns emerged related to hospital ownership, size, teaching activity and region of the country, as well as interrelationships among the factors themselves. Differences between smaller and larger hospitals clearly emerged as well as a distinctive pattern for for-profit hospitals. All of the factors are subject to manipulation through administrative and/or public policy interventions and the findings suggest dimensions for future investigation of important policy issues related to the medical staff's role in cost containment, utilization, quality assurance and technology adoption.

Increased demand for mental health services has focused increased attention on the nature of referral relationships between primary care physicians and psychiatrists in the delivery of psychiatric care. Using data collected from a population of internists in fee-for-service practice in the northern suburbs of Chicago, this paper focuses on issues involving the extent to which internists see psychiatric conditions in their practice; the extent of referral to and from psychiatrists; the most common conditions referred to psychiatrists; the most common treatment modalities used by psychiatrists; the most common reasons psychiatrists refer to internists; and internists ratings of satisfaction with various aspects of their psychiatric referral relationships. A contingency model is proposed as a framework for further understanding the process. Specific propositions to be tested in future research are presented.