Search

Public health officials promoted COVID-19 vaccines to limit burdens placed on the U.S. healthcare system and end the pandemic. People in some closed religious communities refused to vaccinate and likely acquired temporary immunity through infection. This paper compares the death rates in Amish, Old Order Mennonites, and conservative Mennonite groups to a rate estimated for the U.S. population. Approximately two-thirds of the U.S. population was immunized against COVID-19, while few in the Amish/Mennonite community were. We find divergent patterns. Once vaccines became available, excess deaths declined in the general population and remained elevated among Amish and Mennonites. Vaccination campaigns must consider and value the cultural beliefs of closed religious communities to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mission of the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) quality enhancement research initiative (QUERI) is to enhance the quality of VHA health care by implementing clinical research findings into routine care. This paper presents lessons that QUERI investigators have learned through their initial attempts to pursue the QUERI mission. The lessons in this paper represent those that were common across multiple QUERI projects and were mutually agreed on as having substantial impact on the success of implementation. While the lessons are consistent with commonly recognized ingredients of successful implementation efforts, the examples highlight the fact that, even with a thorough knowledge of the literature and thoughtful planning, unexpected circumstances arise during implementation efforts that require flexibility and adaptability. The findings stress the importance of utilizing formative evaluation techniques to identify barriers to successful implementation and strategies to address these barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of conversions between For-Profit and Not-For-Profit forms on quality of medical care in California hospitals. The sample includes elderly patients treated in California's private hospitals from 1990 to 1998 for Acute Myocardial Infarction and Congestive Heart Failure. The results suggest that converted hospitals have experienced quality changes before conversion and that ignoring these changes may bias the estimates of conversion effects. Both conversions are found to have some adverse consequences: Hospitals that converted to FP form show an increase in AMI mortality rates, while those converted to NFP status indicate an increase in CHF mortality outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread adoption of science-based prevention requires local infrastructures for prevention service delivery. Communities That Care (CTC) is a tested prevention service delivery system that enables a local coalition of community stakeholders to use a science-based approach to prevention and improve the behavioral health of young people. This paper uses data from the Community Youth Development Study (CYDS), a community-randomized trial of CTC, to examine the extent to which better internal team functioning of CTC coalitions increases the community-wide adoption of science-based prevention within 12 communities, relative to 12 matched comparison communities. Specifically, this paper examines the potential of both a direct relationship between coalition functioning and the community-wide adoption of science-based prevention and a direct relationship between functioning and the coalition capacities that ultimately enable the adoption of science-based prevention. Findings indicate no evidence of a direct relationship between four dimensions of coalition functioning and the community-wide adoption of a science-based approach to prevention, but suggest a relationship between coalition functioning and coalition capacities (building new member skills and establishing external linkages with existing community organizations) that enable science-based prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This perspective paper seeks to lay out an efficient approach for health care providers, researchers, and other stakeholders involved in interventions aimed at improving care coordination to partner in locating and using applicable care coordination theory. The objective is to learn from relevant theory-based literature about fit between intervention options and coordination needs, thereby bringing insights from theory to enhance intervention design, implementation, and troubleshooting. To take this idea from an abstract notion to tangible application, our workgroup on models and measures from the Veterans Health Administration (VA) State of the Art (SOTA) conference on care coordination first summarizes our distillation of care coordination theoretical frameworks (models) into three common conceptual domains-context of an intervention, locus in which an intervention is applied, and specific design features of the intervention. Then we apply these three conceptual domains to four cases of care coordination interventions ("use cases") chosen to represent various scopes and stages of interventions to improve care coordination for veterans. Taken together, these examples make theory more accessible and practical by demonstrating how it can be applied to specific cases. Drawing from theory offers one method to anticipate which intervention options match a particular coordination situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial-ethnic minorities receive lower quality and intensity of health care compared with whites across a wide range of preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic services and disease entities. These disparities in health care contribute to continuing racial-ethnic disparities in the burden of illness and death. Several national medical organizations and the Institute of Medicine have issued position papers and recommendations for the elimination of health care disparities. However, physicians in practice are often at a loss for how to translate these principles and recommendations into specific interventions in their own clinical practices. This paper serves as a blueprint for translating principles for the elimination of racial-ethnic disparities in health care into specific actions that are relevant for individual clinical practices. We describe what is known about reducing racial-ethnic disparities in clinical practice and make recommendations for how clinician leaders can apply this evidence to transform their own practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health care expenditure studies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries remain important because their findings often suggest cost containment and other policy initiatives. This paper focuses on the compatibility of OECD health data with the "expenditure inertia" (or lagged adjustments) hypothesis, by modeling individual country time-series data of 21 nations for the 1960-1993 period. Maximum likelihood estimates of the Box-Cox transformation regression models reveal that: (a) the hypothesized impact of health "expenditure inertia" is both pervasive and strong, averaging 0.64 across the countries; (b) the real GDP elasticities of health care expenditures vary widely among the countries and average 0.34 in the short run--implying that health care is a necessity; (c) the long run GDP elasticities are less than 1 in 8 countries, unitary elastic in 8 countries and elastic in 5 countries--suggesting that health care is not universally a necessity or a luxury commodity for the OECD countries; (d) physician-inducement effects (dis-inducement in a few countries) are weak, with a mean elasticity estimate of 0.17; and (e) no unique functional form approximation model is globally compatible with the data across the countries. Health care cost containment policy implications of these findings are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical training occurs during peak childbearing years for most medical students. Many factors influence specialty selection. The aims of this study were (i) to determine whether being a parent is a major deciding factor when picking a specialty and (ii) whether parents are more drawn to family-friendly specialties than non-parents. The authors performed a multicenter web-based survey study of medical students enrolled in Oregon Health and Science University, Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, and University of Michigan Medical School. The 27-item instrument assessed parenthood status, specialty preference, specialty perceptions, and factors influencing specialty choice. A total of 537 out of 2236 (24.0%) students responded. Among respondents, 59 (10.9%) were current or expecting parents. The majority (359, 66.8%) were female and 24–35 years old (430, 80.1%). Of the students who were parents or expecting, 30 (50.9%) were female, and the majority (55, 93.2%) were partnered. Top specialties preferred by both parents and non-parents were family medicine, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), internal medicine, psychiatry, and pediatrics. Specialties rated most family-friendly included family medicine, dermatology, pediatrics, psychiatry, radiology, emergency medicine, and pathology. The specialties rated least family-friendly were surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, and OB/GYN. These rankings were the same between groups. Passion for the field, culture of the specialty, and quality of life were the top three factors students considered when choosing a specialty. Being a parent or future parent ranked more highly for parents than non-parents, but was not in the top three factors for either group. US Medical School parents report that being a parent influenced their medical specialty choice "strongly" or "very strongly." However, being a parent was not weighed as heavily as passion for the field, culture of the specialty, and quality of life. These student-parents are entering perceived "non-family friendly" specialties at similar rates as their peers. US Medical school training and simultaneous parenting is daunting, yet student parents are putting their passion first when making a career choice. They must be supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of women in the military is reshaping the veteran population, with women now constituting the fastest growing segment of eligible VA health care users. In recognition of the changing demographics and special health care needs of women, the VA Office of Research & Development recently sponsored the first national VA Women's Health Research Agenda-setting conference to map research priorities to the needs of women veterans and position VA as a national leader in Women's Health Research. This paper summarizes the process and outcomes of this effort, outlining VA's research priorities for biomedical, clinical, rehabilitation, and health services research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. health care system is one of the world's most advanced systems. Yet, the health care system suffers from unexplained practice variations, major gaps between evidence and practice, and suboptimal quality. Although information processing, communication, and management are key to health care delivery and considerable evidence links information/communication technology (IT) to improvements in patient safety and quality of care, the health care system has a longstanding gap in its investment. In the Crossing the Quality Chasm and Building a Better Delivery System reports, The Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Engineering identified IT integration as critical to improving health care delivery systems. This paper reviews the state of IT use in the U.S. health care system, its role in facilitating evidence-based practices, and identifies key attributes of an ideal IT infrastructure and issues surrounding IT implementation. We also examine structural, financial, policy-related, cultural, and organizational barriers to IT implementation for evidence-based practice and strategies to overcome them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests whether the measured cost-effectiveness of treating different subgroups of an incident population of lung cancer patients differs significantly and, by implication, whether the provision of care to these patients is tolerably efficient in economic terms. Data from administrative records and Registry follow-up on 544 non-small cell lung cancer patients diagnosed at a single NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center are used to conduct the empirical analysis. The main results show statistically significant differences in cumulative costs and patient outcomes across subgroups differing by disease stage and treatment modality. These findings imply that the delivery of lung cancer care is inefficient. Substantive and methodological implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the study on problems posed by language barriers. The authors of this paper turn to a series of papers testing innovative solutions. A pair of interpreters in a hospital ward service has been embedded. A study also compares the use of interpreters to language concordant interactions.

Background: Aspirations refer to wishes, ways of defining quality of life (QOL), and life goals. Living with chronic illness likely impacts a person's life aspirations. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an inherited disorder characterized by the inevitable and progressive loss of ambulation and independence. The present cross-sectional case–control study investigated how aspirations differed between people with DMD and a stratified comparison group of nationally representative children/adults. Methods: A web-based survey was administered October through December 2020. Recruitment was stratified by age group: 8–12, 13–17, and > = 18, reflecting the DMD disability trajectory. Aspirations were measured using qualitative (open-ended) and quantitative (closed-ended) questions. Qualitative prompts asked participants about wishes, how they would define "QOL"; and goals; answers to the prompts were then coded by six trained raters. Quantitative questions included 29 closed-ended goal-delineation items from the QOL Appraisal Profilev2. These data were analyzed using multivariate models adjusting for propensity scores (demographic differences), and testing for the effects of role (patient or comparison), age, and role-by-age interactions. Results: The study sample of DMD (n = 285) and comparison (n = 292) participants provided open-text data: 577 wishes statements, 283 QOL-definition statements, and 149 goals statements. Inter-rater reliability (kappa = 0.77) reflected good agreement between different raters' codes. Results suggested that people with DMD have aspirations that differ from their peers in several important ways. Both open-text and closed-ended data in both unadjusted and adjusted analyses generally showed that people with DMD were more focused on intrinsic aspirations such as health, healthcare, and independence than their peers. Compared to non-DMD persons, DMD individuals were much less focused on financial or housing concerns, community contributions, or spiritual growth. With age, patients' aspirations focused less on extrinsic aspirations such as careers and work and increasingly emphasized emotion-oriented goals. Patients were markedly less likely to give a direct answer to the open-ended goals question. Conclusion: There were important differences in aspirations between people with DMD and their peers. These findings may be helpful for developing psychosocial interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health economists use "willingness-to-pay" to assess the prospective value of novel interventions. The technique remains controversial, not least with respect to the formats under which values are elicited. The paper analyses the results of a series of studies of the same intervention valued by the same population, in which different elicitation formats were employed. The findings support the hypothesis that data collected using different formats give rise to different demand curves, from which different inferences about demand elasticity, profitability and consumer surplus will be derived. Judgements as to the relative merits of rival interventions depend crucially upon whichever format has been used to evaluate each intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Personalized care planning is a patient-centered, whole-person approach to treatment planning. Personalized care plans improve patient outcomes and are now mandated for chronic care management reimbursement. Yet guidance on how to best implement personalized care planning in practice is limited.Objective: We examined the adoption of personalized care planning in patient-centered medical home (PCMH) clinics to identify processes and organizational characteristics that facilitated or hindered use in routine practice.Design: Qualitative multiple-case study design. We conducted site visits at PCMH clinics in four US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical centers. Data included 10 general clinic observations, 34 direct observations of patient-provider clinical encounters, 60 key informant interviews, and a document review. Data were analyzed via qualitative content analysis using a priori and emergent coding.Participants: Employees and patients participating in clinical encounters in PCMH clinics at four VHA medical centers.Key Results: Each clinic used a distinct approach to personalized care planning: (1) distributed tasks approach; (2) two-tiered approach; (3) health coaching approach; and (4) leveraging a village approach. Each varied in workflow, healthcare team utilization, and degree of integration into clinical care. Across sites, critical components for implementation included expanding planning beyond initial assessment of patient priorities; framing the initiative for patients; using a team-based approach to care plan development and updates; using communication mechanisms beyond the electronic health record; and engaging stakeholders in implementation planning.Conclusions: Personalized care planning is a novel patient-centered practice, but complicated to implement. We found variation in effective implementation and identified critical components to structuring this practice in a manner that engages patients in treatment aligned with personal priorities. Primary care practices seeking to implement personalized care planning must go beyond simply asking patients a series of questions to establish a plan. They must also engage team members in plan development, communication, and dissemination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Physician burnout is associated with deleterious effects for physicians and their patients and might be exacerbated by practice transformation.Objective: Assess the effect of the Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) initiative on primary care physician experience.Design: Prospective cohort study conducted with about 500 CPC and 900 matched comparison practices. Mail surveys of primary care physicians, selected using cross-sectional stratified random selection 11 months into CPC, and a longitudinal design with sample replacement 44 months into CPC.Participants: Primary care physicians in study practices.Intervention: A multipayer primary care transformation initiative (October 2012-December 2016) that required care delivery changes and provided enhanced payment, data feedback, and learning support.Main Measures: Burnout, control over work, job satisfaction, likelihood of leaving current practice within 2 years.Key Results: More than 1000 physicians responded (over 630 of these in CPC practices) in each round (response rates 70-81%, depending on round and research group). Physician experience outcomes were similar for physicians in CPC and comparison practices. About one third of physician respondents in CPC and comparison practices reported high levels of burnout in each round (32 and 29% in 2013 [P = 0.59], and 34 and 36% in 2016 [P = 0.63]). Physicians in CPC and comparison practices reported some to moderate control over work, with an average score from 0.50 to 0.55 out of 1 in 2013 and 2016 (CPC-comparison differences of - 0.04 in 2013 [95% CI - 0.08-0.00, P = 0.07], and - 0.03 in 2016 [95% CI - 0.03-0.02, P = 0.19]). In 2016, roughly three quarters of CPC and comparison physicians were satisfied with their current job (77 and 74%, P = 0.77) and about 15% planned to leave their practice within 2 years (14 and 15%, P = 0.17).Conclusions: Despite requiring substantial practice transformation, CPC did not affect physician experience. Research should track effects of other transformation initiatives on physicians and test new ways to address burnout.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02320591. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 2011 Medicare data, we identified 1,107,709 beneficiaries cared for by 2682 general internists and 3396 family physicians. Despite differences in training and practice, general internists share with family physicians associations between increasing comprehensiveness and lower Medicare beneficiary costs highlighting the importance of comprehensiveness in primary care regardless of the type of primary care physician providing the care. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Decision makers are increasingly tasked with reducing health care costs, but the public may be mistrustful of these efforts. Public deliberation helps gather input on these types of issues by convening a group of diverse individuals to learn about and discuss values-based dilemmas.Objective: To explore public perceptions of health care costs and how they intersect with medical mistrust.Design and Participants: This mixed-methods study analyzed data from a randomized controlled trial including four public deliberation groups (n = 96) and a control group (n = 348) comprising English-speaking adults aged 18 years and older. Data were collected in 2012 in four U.S. regions.Approach: We used data from four survey items to compare attitude shifts about costs among participants in deliberation groups to participants in the control group. We qualitatively analyzed deliberation transcripts to identify themes related to attitude shifts and to provide context for quantitative results about attitude shifts.Key Results: Deliberation participants were significantly more likely than control group participants to agree that doctors and patients should consider cost when making treatment decisions (β = 0.59; p < 0.01) and that people should consider the effect on group premiums when making treatment decisions (β = 0.48; p < 0.01). Qualitatively, participants mistrusted the health care system's profit motives (e.g., that systems prioritize making money over patient needs); however, after grappling with patient/doctor autonomy and learning about and examining their own views related to costs during the process of deliberation, they largely concluded that payers have the right to set some boundaries to curb costs.Conclusions: Individuals who are informed about costs may be receptive to boundaries that reduce societal health care costs, despite their mistrust of the health care system's profit motives, especially if decision makers communicate their rationale in a transparent manner. Future work should aim to develop transparent policies and practices that earn public trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Care management is becoming increasingly offered in the U.S. as a means of helping patients better manage their chronic diseases and possibly avoid worsening or exacerbations of their conditions, which can result in potentially avoidable and costly healthcare services. Since care management can be provided using different intervention methods and by different entities, we sought to compare different models of care management delivery on their long-term medical savings. Specifically, we compare health plan provided care management to provider delivered care management. Evaluation of the effectiveness of care management programs can be challenging because it can take time for patients to make recommended changes and then demonstrate healthcare savings associated with those changes. In this study, we modeled the unknown form of the time-varying program effects using a spline-based technique in the Bayesian framework, where the number and locations of knots were treated unknown and learned via reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo. We also addressed additional modeling challenges from features seen in our healthcare cost data such as highly right-skewed outcomes with non-constant variances and extra zeros. To provide a more robust analysis, we incorporated a follow-up period of up to 4 years that is longer than the most of the published studies on care management. The results of this work demonstrate that cost savings do accrue with specific models of care management. In particular, the embedded model of care management was significantly more effective than the health plan provided care management in controlling medical costs after 2 years of engagement, and the savings increased over time. This information should help policy makers and employer groups achieve a better understanding of the potential value of care management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The healthcare system is ill-equipped to meet the needs of adults on the autism spectrum.Objective: Our goal was to use a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to develop and evaluate tools to facilitate the primary healthcare of autistic adults.Design: Toolkit development included cognitive interviewing and test-retest reliability studies. Evaluation consisted of a mixed-methods, single-arm pre/post-intervention comparison.Participants: A total of 259 autistic adults and 51 primary care providers (PCPs) residing in the United States.Interventions: The AASPIRE Healthcare toolkit includes the Autism Healthcare Accommodations Tool (AHAT)-a tool that allows patients to create a personalized accommodations report for their PCP-and general healthcare- and autism-related information, worksheets, checklists, and resources for patients and healthcare providers.Main Measures: Satisfaction with patient-provider communication, healthcare self-efficacy, barriers to healthcare, and satisfaction with the toolkit's usability and utility; responses to open-ended questions.Key Results: Preliminary testing of the AHAT demonstrated strong content validity and adequate test-retest stability. Almost all patient participants (>94 %) felt that the AHAT and the toolkit were easy to use, important, and useful. In pre/post-intervention comparisons, the mean number of barriers decreased (from 4.07 to 2.82, p < 0.0001), healthcare self-efficacy increased (from 37.9 to 39.4, p = 0.02), and satisfaction with PCP communication improved (from 30.9 to 32.6, p = 0.03). Patients stated that the toolkit helped clarify their needs, enabled them to self-advocate and prepare for visits more effectively, and positively influenced provider behavior. Most of the PCPs surveyed read the AHAT (97 %), rated it as moderately or very useful (82 %), and would recommend it to other patients (87 %).Conclusions: The CBPR process resulted in a reliable healthcare accommodation tool and a highly accessible healthcare toolkit. Patients and providers indicated that the tools positively impacted healthcare interactions. The toolkit has the potential to reduce barriers to healthcare and improve healthcare self-efficacy and patient-provider communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many Veterans treated within the VA Healthcare System (VA) are also enrolled in fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare and receive treatment outside the VA. Prior research has not accounted for the multiple ways that Veterans receive services across healthcare systems.Objective: We aimed to establish a typology of VA and Medicare utilization among dually enrolled Veterans with type 2 diabetes.Design: This was a retrospective cohort.Participants: 316,775 community-dwelling Veterans age ≥ 65 years with type 2 diabetes who were dually enrolled in the VA and FFS Medicare in 2008-2009.Methods: Using latent class analysis, we identified classes of Veterans based upon their probability of using VA and Medicare diabetes care services, including patient visits, laboratory tests, glucose test strips, and medications. We compared the amount of healthcare use between classes and identified factors associated with class membership using multinomial regression.Key Results: We identified four distinct latent classes: class 1 (53.9%) had high probabilities of VA use and low probabilities of Medicare use; classes 2 (17.2%), 3 (21.8%), and 4 (7.0%) had high probabilities of VA and Medicare use, but differed in their Medicare services used. For example, Veterans in class 3 received test strips exclusively through Medicare, while Veterans in class 4 were reliant on Medicare for medications. Living ≥ 40 miles from a VA predicted membership in classes 3 (OR 1.1, CI 1.06-1.15) and 4 (OR 1.11, CI 1.04-1.18), while Medicaid eligibility predicted membership in class 4 (OR 4.30, CI 4.10-4.51).Conclusions: Veterans with diabetes can be grouped into four distinct classes of dual health system use, representing a novel way to characterize how patients use multiple services across healthcare systems. This classification has applications for identifying patients facing differential risk from care fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction:The irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) and chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) are associated with substantial symptom and disease burden. Although typically classified as distinct diseases, symptoms frequently overlap.Aim:The objective of this study was to characterize symptom and disease burden in IBS-C and CIC sufferers and examine a subset of CIC sufferers with abdominal symptoms.Methods:In a US population-based survey, respondents meeting the Rome III criteria for IBS-C or CIC rated symptom frequency and bothersomeness, missed work and disrupted productivity, and degree of obtaining and satisfaction with physician care. CIC respondents were analyzed in two subgroups: those with abdominal symptoms ≥once weekly (CIC-A) and those without (CIC-NA).Results:Of the 10,030 respondents, 328 met the criteria for IBS-C and 552 for CIC (363 CIC-A; 189 CIC-NA). All symptoms were significantly more frequent in IBS-C vs. CIC respondents (P<0.0001). Constipation was extremely/very bothersome in 72% of IBS-C respondents, 62% of CIC-A, and 40% of CIC-NA (P<0.01 all pairs). All 11 other measured symptoms were significantly more bothersome in IBS-C and CIC-A vs. CIC-NA respondents. In IBS-C vs. CIC-A, abdominal discomfort, bloating, straining, and pellet-like stools were also significantly more bothersome, with other remaining symptoms similar. Gastrointestinal symptoms disrupted productivity a mean of 4.9 days per month in IBS-C respondents, 3.2 in CIC-A, and 1.2 in CIC-NA (P<0.001 all pairs); missed days were similar in IBS-C and CIC-A respondents.Conclusion:CIC respondents with abdominal symptoms experience greater disease burden compared with CIC respondents without frequent abdominal symptoms and have a disease burden profile that is similar to IBS-C respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Homeless people have high rates of hospitalization and emergency department (ED) use. Obtaining adequate food is a common concern among homeless people and may influence health care utilization.Objective: We tested the hypothesis that food insufficiency is related to higher rates of hospitalization and ED use in a national sample of homeless adults.Design: We analyzed data from the 2003 Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) User Survey.Participants: Participants were 966 adults surveyed at 79 HCH clinic sites throughout the US. The study sample was representative of over 436,000 HCH clinic users nationally.Measures: We determined the prevalence and characteristics of food insufficiency among respondents. Using multivariable logistic regression, we examined the association between food insufficiency and four past-year acute health services utilization outcomes: (1) hospitalization for any reason, (2) psychiatric hospitalization, (3) any ED use, and (4) high ED use (≥ 4 visits).Results: Overall, 25% of respondents reported food insufficiency. Among them, 68% went a whole day without eating in the past month. Chronically homeless (p = 0.01) and traumatically victimized (p = 0.001) respondents were more likely to be food insufficient. In multivariable analyses, food insufficiency was associated with significantly greater odds of hospitalization for any reason (AOR 1.59, 95% CI 1.07, 2.36), psychiatric hospitalization (AOR 3.12, 95% CI 1.73, 5.62), and high ED utilization (AOR 2.83, 95% CI 1.32, 6.08).Conclusions: One-fourth of homeless adults in this national survey were food insufficient, and this was associated with increased odds of acute health services utilization. Addressing the adverse health services utilization patterns of homeless adults will require attention to the social circumstances that may contribute to this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are growing reports of United States (US) residents traveling overseas for medical care, but empirical data about medical tourism are limited.Objective: To characterize the businesses and business practices of entities promoting medical tourism and the types and costs of procedures being offered. DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS, AND OUTCOMES: Between June and August 2008, we conducted a telephone survey of all businesses engaged in facilitating overseas medical travel for US residents. We collected information from each company including: the number of employees; number of patients referred overseas; medical records security processes; destinations to which patients were referred; treatments offered; treatment costs; and whether patient outcomes were collected.Results: We identified 63 medical tourism companies and 45 completed our survey (71%). Companies had a mean of 9.8 employees and had referred an average of 285 patients overseas (a total of approximately 13,500 patients). 35 (79%) companies reported requiring accreditation of foreign providers, 22 (50%) collected patient outcome data, but only 17 (39%) described formal medical records security policies. The most common destinations were India (23 companies, 55%), Costa Rica (14, 33%), and Thailand (12, 29%). The most common types of care included orthopedics (32 companies, 73%), cardiac care (23, 52%), and cosmetic surgery (29, 66%). 20 companies (44%) offered treatments not approved for use in the US--most commonly stem cell therapy. Average costs for common procedures, CABG ($18,600) and knee arthroplasty ($10,800), were similar to previous reports.Conclusions: The number of Americans traveling overseas for medical care with assistance from medical tourism companies is relatively small. Attention to medical records security and patient outcomes is variable and cost-savings are dependent on US prices. That said, overseas medical care can be a reasonable alternative for price sensitive patients in need of relatively common, elective medical procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: US cholesterol guidelines use original and simplified versions of the Framingham model to estimate future coronary risk and thereby classify patients into risk groups with different treatment strategies. We sought to compare risk estimates and risk group classification generated by the original, complex Framingham model and the simplified, point-based version.Methods: We assessed 2,543 subjects age 20-79 from the 2001-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) for whom Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP-III) guidelines recommend formal risk stratification. For each subject, we calculated the 10-year risk of major coronary events using the original and point-based Framingham models, and then compared differences in these risk estimates and whether these differences would place subjects into different ATP-III risk groups (<10% risk, 10-20% risk, or >20% risk). Using standard procedures, all analyses were adjusted for survey weights, clustering, and stratification to make our results nationally representative.Results: Among 39 million eligible adults, the original Framingham model categorized 71% of subjects as having "moderate" risk (<10% risk of a major coronary event in the next 10 years), 22% as having "moderately high" (10-20%) risk, and 7% as having "high" (>20%) risk. Estimates of coronary risk by the original and point-based models often differed substantially. The point-based system classified 15% of adults (5.7 million) into different risk groups than the original model, with 10% (3.9 million) misclassified into higher risk groups and 5% (1.8 million) into lower risk groups, for a net impact of classifying 2.1 million adults into higher risk groups. These risk group misclassifications would impact guideline-recommended drug treatment strategies for 25-46% of affected subjects. Patterns of misclassifications varied significantly by gender, age, and underlying CHD risk.Conclusions: Compared to the original Framingham model, the point-based version misclassifies millions of Americans into risk groups for which guidelines recommend different treatment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As healthcare reform evolves and takes shape, comparative effectiveness research (CER) appears to be one of the central topics on the national healthcare agenda. Over the past couple of years, comparative effectiveness has been explicitly incorporated in more than ten bills. For example, the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 authorized $US1.1 billion for CER. Comparative effectiveness, when costs are formally considered, offers the hope of efficient resource allocation within US healthcare markets. However, the future operationalization and implementation of comparative effectiveness is uncertain, and there exist potentially negative, and unintended, consequences under certain scenarios. One example, and the focus of this article, is pharmaceutical innovation. Incentives for pharmaceutical R&D could be affected if drug development costs increase as a result of firms having to bear, directly or indirectly, the costs of running larger, randomized, head-to-head comparative effectiveness trials. While this may or may not be the case with current and future comparative effectiveness legislation and its subsequent implementation, the potential consequences for pharmaceutical innovation warrant recognition. This is the purpose of the article. To achieve this goal, we develop several models of clinical trial design, drug development costs and R&D investment. By example, we shed light on the causal links between the models and the ways in which industry R&D investment can be affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is generating intense attention as interest grows in finding new and better drug technology assessment processes. The federal government is supporting the expansion of CER through funding made available in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and by establishing the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. At the same time, personalized medicine is generating debate about its place in clinical medicine, and so, naturally, how CER can or cannot play a role in personalized medicine is part of these debates. At the heart of the debate around the role of CER in personalized medicine is the nature of personalized medicine and how it fits within contemporary clinical research concepts. We maintain in this article that CER can serve to catalyze personalized medicine, but we recognize that, for this to happen, researchers will need to embrace new data sources and new analytic approaches. We also recognize that drug technology assessment processes will have to undergo necessary adaptations to accommodate CER as configured for personalized medicine, and that clinicians will need to be educated appropriately and provided access to decision-support systems through health information technology to use the information coming from this research. To illustrate our argument, we describe two ongoing CER studies funded and managed in the private sector evaluating personalized medicine interventions that have important clinical and financial implications. One of the studies investigates the clinical and financial effects of pharmacogenomic testing for warfarin as prescribed in conditions of typical practice settings. The other study is also set in community practice settings and compares cardiovascular outcomes of patients receiving clopidogrel who are extensive metabolizer phenotypes for the cytochrome P450 2C19 hepatic isoenzyme with all patients receiving prasugrel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is sometimes necessary for courts to appoint guardians for adult, incapacitated patients. There are few data describing how medical decisions are made for such patients before and during the guardianship process.Objective: To describe the process of medical decision-making for incapacitated, hospitalized adults for whom court-appointed guardians are requested.Design: Retrospective, descriptive cohort study.Measurements: Patients were identified from the legal files of a public, urban hospital. Medical and legal records were reviewed for demographic data, code status, diagnoses, code status orders and invasive procedures and person authorizing the order or procedure, dates of incapacitation and appointment of temporary guardian, reason for guardianship, and documentation of communication with a guardian.Results: A total of 79 patients met inclusion criteria; 68.4% were male and 56.2% African-American. The median age was 65 years. Of the 71 patients with medical records available 89% of patients had a temporary guardianship petitioned because of the need for placement only. Seventeen patients had a new DNR order written during hospitalization, eight of which were ordered by physicians without consultation with a surrogate decision maker. Overall, 32 patients underwent a total of 81 documented invasive procedures, 16 of which were authorized by the patient, 15 by family or friend, and 11 by a guardian; consent was not required for 39 of the procedures because of emergency conditions or because a procedure was medically necessary and no surrogate decision maker was available.Conclusions: Although most of the guardianships were requested for placement purposes, important medical decisions were made while patients were awaiting appointment of a guardian. Hospitalized, incapacitated adults awaiting guardianship may lack a surrogate decision maker when serious decisions must be made about their medical care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis B-associated liver cancer is a major health disparity among Vietnamese Americans, who have a chronic hepatitis B prevalence rate of 7-14% and an incidence rate for liver cancer six times that of non-Latino whites.Objective: Describe factors associated with hepatitis B testing among Vietnamese Americans.Design: A population-based telephone survey conducted in 2007-2008.Participants: Vietnamese Americans age 18-64 and living in the Northern California and Washington, DC areas (N = 1,704).Main Measures: Variables included self-reports of sociodemographics, health care factors, and hepatitis B-related behaviors, knowledge, beliefs, and communication with others. The main outcome variable was self-reported receipt of hepatitis B testing.Key Results: The cooperation rate was 63.1% and the response rate was 27.4%. Only 62% of respondents reported having received a hepatitis B test and 26%, hepatitis B vaccination. Only 54% knew that hepatitis B could be transmitted by sexual intercourse. In multivariable analyses, factors negatively associated with testing included: age 30-49 years, US residence for >10 years, less Vietnamese fluency, lower income, and believing that hepatitis B can be deadly. Factors positively associated with testing included: Northern California residence, having had hepatitis B vaccination, having discussed hepatitis B with family/friends, and employer requested testing. Physician recommendation of hepatitis B testing (OR 4.46, 95% CI 3.36, 5.93) and respondent's request for hepatitis B testing (OR 8.37, 95% CI 5.95, 11.78) were strongly associated with test receipt.Conclusion: Self-reports of hepatitis B testing among Vietnamese Americans remain unacceptably low. Physician recommendation and patient request were the factors most strongly associated with test receipt. A comprehensive effort is needed to promote hepatitis B testing in this population, including culturally-targeted community outreach, increased access to testing, and physician education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: General internists and other generalist physicians have traditionally cared for their patients during both ambulatory visits and hospitalizations. It has been suggested that the expansion of hospitalists since the mid-1990s has "crowded out" generalists from inpatient care. However, it is also possible that declining hospital utilization relative to the size of the generalist workforce reduced the incentives for generalists to continue providing hospital care.Objective: To examine trends in hospital utilization and the generalist workforce before and after the emergence of hospitalists in the U.S. and to investigate factors contributing to these trends.Design: Using data from 1980-2005 on inpatient visits from the National Hospital Discharge Survey, and physician manpower data from the American Medical Association, we identified national trends before and after the emergence of hospitalists in the annual number of inpatient encounters relative to the number of generalists.Results: Inpatient encounters relative to the number of generalists declined steadily before the emergence of hospitalists. Declines in inpatient encounters relative to the number of generalists were driven primarily by reduced hospital length of stay and increased numbers of generalists.Conclusions: Hospital utilization relative to generalist workforce declined before the emergence of hospitalists, largely due to declining length of stay and rising generalist workforce. This likely weakened generalist incentives to provide hospital care. Models of care that seek to preserve dual-setting generalist care spanning ambulatory and inpatient settings are most likely to be viable if they focus on patients at high risk of hospitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The majority of states have enacted price transparency laws to allow patients to shop for care and to prevent price discrimination of the uninsured. In California, hospitals must provide a price estimate to a requesting uninsured patient and cannot bill for an amount greater than the reimbursement the hospital would receive from a government payer.Objective: To assess the response rate of California hospitals to a patient price request and to compare the price estimates received to Medicare reimbursement.Design: We sent letters to California acute-care hospitals from a fictional uninsured patient requesting an estimate for one of three common elective procedures: a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, a hysterectomy, or routine screening colonoscopy.Participants: Three hundred and fifty-three hospitals in California.Measurements: Hospital response rates, difference between price estimates received, and Medicare reimbursement for equivalent procedures.Results: Only 28% (98/353) of hospitals responded and their response varied in content. Of the 98 responses, 15 (15%) did not provide a quote and instead asked for more information such as the billing code, 55 (56%) provided a price estimate for hospital services only, 10 (10%) included both physician and hospital services, and 18 (18%) did not specify what was covered. The median discounted price estimate was higher than Medicare reimbursement rates for all procedures: hysterectomy ($17,403 vs. $5,569; p<0.001), cholecystectomy ($14,014 vs. $7,196; p<0.001) and colonoscopy ($2,017 vs. $216; p<0.001).Conclusions: Current California legislation fails to meet its objective of enabling uninsured patients to compare prices for hospital-based health care services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is accelerating interest in measuring and reporting the quality of care delivered by health care providers and organizations, but methods for defining the patient panels for which they are held accountable are not well defined.Objectives: To examine the potential impact of using alternative algorithms to define accountable patient populations for performance assessment.Research Design: We used administrative data regarding Community Health Center (CHC) visits in simulations of performance assessment for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening.Participants: Fifteen CHC sites in the northeastern US.Measures: We used three different algorithms to define patient populations eligible for measurement of cancer screening rates and simulated center-level performance rates based on these alternative population definitions.Results: Focusing on breast cancer screening, the percentage of women aged 51-75 eligible for this measure across CHCs, if using the most stringent algorithm (requiring a visit in the assessment year plus at least one visit in the 2 years prior), ranged from 28% to 60%. Analogous ranges for cervical and colorectal cancer screening were 18-59% and 26-62%, respectively. Simulated performance data from the centers demonstrate that variations in eligible patient populations across health centers could lead to the appearance of large differences in health center performance or differences in expected rankings of CHCs when no such differences exist. For instance, when holding performance among similar populations constant, but varying the proportion of populations seen across different health centers, simulated health center adherence to screening guidelines varied by over 15% even though actual adherence for similar populations did not differ.Conclusions: Quality measurement systems, such as those being used in pay-for-performance and public reporting programs, must consider the definitions used to identify sample populations and how such populations might differ across providers, clinical practice groups, and provider systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Over 35% of returned Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in VA care have received mental health diagnoses; the most prevalent is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Little is known about these patients' use of non-mental health medical services and the impact of mental disorders on utilization.Objective: To compare utilization across three groups of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans: those without mental disorders, those with mental disorders other than PTSD, and those with PTSD.Design and Participants: National, descriptive study of 249,440 veterans newly utilizing VA healthcare between October 7, 2001 and March 31, 2007, followed until March 31, 2008.Measurements: We used ICD9-CM diagnostic codes to classify mental health status. We compared utilization of outpatient non-mental health services, primary care, medical subspecialty, ancillary services, laboratory tests/diagnostic procedures, emergency services, and hospitalizations during veterans' first year in VA care. Results were adjusted for demographics and military service and VA facility characteristics.Main Results: Veterans with mental disorders had 42-146% greater utilization than those without mental disorders, depending on the service category (all P < 0.001). Those with PTSD had the highest utilization in all categories: 71-170% greater utilization than those without mental disorders (all P < 0.001). In adjusted analyses, compared with veterans without mental disorders, those with mental disorders other than PTSD had 55% higher utilization of all non-mental health outpatient services; those with PTSD had 91% higher utilization. Female sex and lower rank were also independently associated with greater utilization.Conclusions: Veterans with mental health diagnoses, particularly PTSD, utilize significantly more VA non-mental health medical services. As more veterans return home, we must ensure resources are allocated to meet their outpatient, inpatient, and emergency needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little research investigates the role of patient-physician communication in understanding racial disparities in depression treatment.Objective: The objective of this study was to compare patient-physician communication patterns for African-American and white patients who have high levels of depressive symptoms.Design, Setting, and Participants: This is a cross-sectional study of primary care visits of 108 adult patients (46 white, 62 African American) who had depressive symptoms measured by the Medical Outcomes Study-Short Form (SF-12) Mental Component Summary Score and were receiving care from one of 54 physicians in urban community-based practices.Main Outcomes: Communication behaviors, obtained from coding of audiotapes, and physician perceptions of patients' physical and emotional health status and stress levels were measured by post-visit surveys.Results: African-American patients had fewer years of education and reported poorer physical health than whites. There were no racial differences in the level of depressive symptoms. Depression communication occurred in only 34% of visits. The average number of depression-related statements was much lower in the visits of African-American than white patients (10.8 vs. 38.4 statements, p = .02). African-American patients also experienced visits with less rapport building (20.7 vs. 29.7 statements, p = .009). Physicians rated a higher percentage of African-American than white patients as being in poor or fair physical health (69% vs. 40%, p = .006), and even in visits where depression communication occurred, a lower percentage of African-American than white patients were considered by their physicians to have significant emotional distress (67% vs. 93%, p = .07).Conclusions: This study reveals racial disparities in communication among primary care patients with high levels of depressive symptoms. Physician communication skills training programs that emphasize recognition and rapport building may help reduce racial disparities in depression care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess the impact of the HealthChoice program in Maryland on cesarean section and vaginal birth after C-section deliveries. Pre-post design using a comparison group with Maryland State Inpatient Databases, part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Although the combined 1995 and 2000 database contained over 1.2 million inpatient discharge records, the analysis included all hospital discharge abstracts for women in labor. To identify the delivery, Diagnoses-Related Groups (DRGs) 370–375 were used from the discharge data. Together, there were 128,743 births identified in both years. Pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid managed care were compared pre-implementation and post implementation with pregnant women delivering babies under private insurance. The analysis computed difference-in-differences estimates using a logistic regression model that controlled for maternal characteristics, payment source, labor and delivery complications, and hospital characteristics. The outcome variables included Primary Cesarean, Repeat Cesarean, and Vaginal Birth after C-section. These results suggest that Medicaid managed care enrollees were less likely to undergo cesarean section deliveries relative to privately insured beneficiaries. Medicaid MCOs may have done a better job of limiting the growth in overused procedures than did MCOs and providers for privately insured women. This study has shown that there has been an overall increase in the use of primary and repeat cesarean sections in Maryland hospitals. However, HealthChoice limited this increase for Medicaid enrollees relative to privately insured women. On the other hand, vaginal births after C-section have declined in Maryland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The aging of the population and the increasing prevalence of multiple chronic illnesses, along with multiplying options for clinical management, pose great challenges to both the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the broader US health care system. Developing effective and efficient health care for persons with complex and multiple medical conditions is a national priority. Therefore, research in this area is critically important. In 2006, the VHA Health Services Research and Development Service held a state-of-the-Art (SOTA) conference titled "Managing Complexity in Chronic Care" to clarify our current understanding of the management of complex chronic conditions and suggest directions for research to better address this important problem.Objective: This article provides an overview of the major findings from that conference, including major presentations, summaries of the workgroup deliberations, and a list of research topics that were thought to be of highest importance to advancing our ability to provide medical care for persons with complex chronic care needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although multiple co-occurring chronic illnesses within the same individual are increasingly common, few studies have examined the challenges of multimorbidity from the patient perspective.Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the self-management learning needs and willingness to see non-physician providers of patients with multimorbidity compared to patients with single chronic illnesses.Design: This research is designed as a cross-sectional survey.Participants: Based upon ICD-9 codes, patients from a single VHA healthcare system were stratified into multimorbidity clusters or groups with a single chronic illness from the corresponding cluster. Nonproportional sampling was used to randomly select 720 patients.Measurements: Demographic characteristics, functional status, number of contacts with healthcare providers, components of primary care, self-management learning needs, and willingness to see nonphysician providers.Results: Four hundred twenty-two patients returned surveys. A higher percentage of multimorbidity patients compared to single morbidity patients were "definitely" willing to learn all 22 self-management skills, of these only 2 were not significant. Compared to patients with single morbidity, a significantly higher percentage of patients with multimorbidity also reported that they were "definitely" willing to see 6 of 11 non-physician healthcare providers.Conclusions: Self-management learning needs of multimorbidity patients are extensive, and their preferences are consistent with team-based primary care. Alternative methods of providing support and chronic illness care may be needed to meet the needs of these complex patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Language barriers in medical care are a large and growing problem in the United States. Most research has focused on how language barriers affect patients. Less is known of the physician perspective and the efforts they are making to overcome these barriers.Objective: To learn about current approaches to communicating with limited English-proficient (LEP) patients and the associated financial and nonfinancial constraints that private practice physicians and managers perceive in providing these services.Design: Computer-assisted telephone focus groups with open-ended discussion guide.Setting: Small private practices in geographic areas that have experienced recent dramatic increases in LEP populations.Participants: Primary care physicians, specialists, and practice managers.Approach: Focus group transcripts were systematically coded using grounded theory analysis. The research team then identified common themes that arose across the groups.Results: Citing the cost, inaccessibility, and inconvenience of using professional interpreters, physicians commonly used family and friends as interpreters. Few recalled any actual experience with professional interpreters or were well-informed about the cost of their services. Physicians and office managers voiced uniform concern about how language barriers impede quality and safety of patient care and increased malpractice risk.Conclusions: Health care providers in private practice recognize the importance of overcoming language barriers. However, perceived barriers to implementing cost-effective strategies to these barriers are high. Physicians in private practice would benefit from information about how to best overcome language barriers in their practices efficiently and affordably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managed care penetration has been partly responsible for slowing down increases in health care costs in recent years. This study uses a 1992-1996 Health Care Utilization Project sample of hospitals to analyze the relationship between managed care penetration in local insurance markets and hospital scale efficiency. After controlling for hospital and market area variables, we find that managed care insurance, particularly the preferred provider type, is associated with increases in hospital scale efficiency in tertiary cases. The results presented here are consistent with the view that managed care can lead to reductions in health cost inflation by controlling the diffusion of technology via improvements in the scale efficiency of hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Older patients mostly receive depression care from primary care physicians, but it is not known whether depression treatment is primarily received from family/general practice physicians or internal medicine physicians and whether the type of depression treatment offered varies between these types of primary care physicians.Objective: To assess what proportion of visits for depression are to family/general practice physicians or to internal medicine physicians and whether the type of depression treatment offered varies by primary care physician specialty.Design: Data from the 2000 and 2001 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, a nationally representative survey of visits to office-based practices using clustered sampling, were used.Participants: Office-based physician practices in the United States.Results: There were an estimated 9.8 million visits made to office-based providers by older patients for depression in 2001 to 2002, of which 64% were to primary care physicians. Visits to primary care providers were evenly split between Internists and family/general practice physicians. There was no significant difference in the rate of antidepressant prescribing between visits to Internists versus family/general practice (55.9% vs 48.0%; P = .42). Mental health counseling or psychotherapy was offered more often during visits to family/general practice physicians than to Internists (39.4% vs 14.0%; P = .07).Conclusions: Visits for depression by elderly patients continue to take place in primary care settings to both family/general practice physicians and Internists. Interventions aimed at improving depression care in primary care should focus on both types of primary care physicians and emphasize improving rates of diagnosis and referral for counseling or psychotherapy as a viable treatment option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many scholars have written about the historical underpinnings and likely consequences of African Americans distrust in health care, yet little research has been done to understand if and how this distrust affects African Americans' current views of the trustworthiness of physicians.Objective: To better understand what trust and distrust in physicians means to African Americans.Design: Focus-group study, using an open-ended discussion guide.Setting: Large public hospital and community organization in Chicago, IL.Patients: Convenience sample of African-American adult men and women.Measurements: Each focus group was systematically coded using grounded theory analysis. The research team then identified themes that commonly arose across the 9 focus groups.Results: Participants indicated that trust is determined by the interpersonal and technical competence of physicians. Contributing factors to distrust in physicians include a lack of interpersonal and technical competence, perceived quest for profit and expectations of racism and experimentation during routine provision of health care. Trust appears to facilitate care-seeking behavior and promotes patient honesty and adherence. Distrust inhibits care-seeking, can result in a change in physician and may lead to nonadherence.Conclusions: Unique factors contribute to trust and distrust in physicians among African-American patients. These factors should be considered in clinical practice to facilitate trust building and improve health care provided to African Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Despite theoretical concerns that health care related distrust may lead to poor health outcomes by interfering with effective health care, little is currently known about the prevalence or outcomes of distrust of the health care system in the United States.Objective: To investigate the association between distrust of the health care system and self-reported health status among the general population in the United States.Design: Random-digit-dialing telephone survey.Participants: Nine hundred and sixty-one adult residents of the continental U.S.Primary Measures: Distrust of the health care system and self-reported health status.Results: Distrust of the health care system is relatively high in the United States, with between 20% and 80% of respondents reporting distrust for each item on the Health Care System Distrust scale and a median scale score of 31 (potential range from 10 to 50). Distrust of the health care system is strongly associated with self-reported fair/poor health (odds ratio [OR] 1.40%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.12 to 1.75 for each standard deviation increase in distrust), even after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, access to health care and trust in primary physicians. In contrast, low trust in one's primary physician is much lower (only 10% to 20% of respondents reported distrust for each item) and is not associated with health status.Conclusions: Distrust of the health care system is relatively high in the general population in the United States and is strongly associated with worse self-reported health. Further studies are needed to assess the direction of this association and the mechanisms involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The persistence of a large quality gap between what we know about how to produce high quality clinical care and what the public receives has prompted interest in developing more effective methods to get evidence into practice. Implementation research aims to supply such methods.Purpose: This article proposes a set of recommendations aimed at establishing a common understanding of what implementation research is, and how to foster its development.Methods: We developed the recommendations in the context of a translation research conference hosted by the VA for VA and non-VA health services researchers.Impacts: Health care organizations, journals, researchers and academic institutions can use these recommendations to advance the field of implementation science and thus increase the impact of clinical and health services research on the health and health care of the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides (a) new estimates of U.S. hospital profitability by payer group, controlling for hospital characteristics, and (b) evidence about the intensity of care for particular diseases associated with the generosity of the patient's payer and other payers at the same hospital. The conceptual framework is a variant of the well-known model of a local monopolist selling in a segmented market. Effects of two kinds of regulation are considered. The data are taken from hospital accounting reports in four states in FY2000, and detailed discharge summaries from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The profitability of inpatient care for privately insured patients was found to be about 4% less than for Medicare, but 14% higher than for Medicaid and only 9% higher than for self-pay patients. We found significant direct associations but not external effects of payer generosity on the intensity of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether having designated case management staff facilitates delivery of comprehensive medical and psychosocial services in substance abuse treatment programs. A multilevel, prospective cohort study of 2829 clients admitted to selected substance abuse treatment programs was used to study clients from long-term residential, outpatient, and methadone treatment modalities. Program directors reported whether the program had staff designated as case managers. After treatment discharge, clients reported their receipt of 9 supplemental services during the treatment episode. In multivariate models controlling for multiple program-level and client-level factors, program-level availability of designated case managers increased client-level receipt of only 2 of 9 services, and exerted no effect on service comprehensiveness, compared to programs that did not have designated case managers. These findings do not support the common practice of designating case management staff as a means to facilitate comprehensive services delivery in addiction treatment programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing interest in assessment of program implementation, little is known about the best way to evaluate whether a particular program has implemented the intended service to a level that is minimally acceptable to a funding source, such as a state mental health authority. Such is the case for assertive community treatment (ACT), an evidence-based practice being widely disseminated. Using an exploratory, actuarial approach to defining program standards, this study applies different statistical criteria for determining whether or not a program meets ACT standards using the 28-item Dartmouth Assertive Community Treatment Scale. The sample consists of 51 ACT programs, 25 intensive case management programs, and 11 brokered case management programs which were compared to identify levels of fidelity that discriminated between programs, but were still attainable by the majority of ACT programs. A grading system based on mean total score for a reduced set of 21 items appeared to be most attainable, but still discriminated ACT programs from other forms of case management. Implications for setting and evaluating ACT program standards are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning for future care needs is likely to be influenced by both policy and culture. We compared attitudes regarding the usefulness of planning ahead for future care needs, processes of preparation for these needs (becoming aware of the risk of future care needs, gathering information about available options, deciding on preferences, concrete planning), and outcomes of preparation (e.g., knowledge about services) in 294 East German, 288 West German, and 590 American seniors. American respondents had higher preparation scores. Compared to the size of national differences, differences between East and West German seniors were generally smaller. East Germans made fewer decisions on preferences and engaged in less concrete planning. Most of the national and regional differences in preparation for future care needs were reduced or eliminated by controlling for differences in the perceived usefulness of planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the importance of fee-for-service Medicare. It mentions that it has spill-over effects from Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). HMO have the most restrictive terms for allowing patients to seek care out of plan and in permitting unchained decisions in the care giver's part. It notes that due to continuous drive toward greater managed care penetration, people should understand the degree of choices of those who do not want to receive care in an HMO setting.

Alternate Shewhart-type statistical control charts, called "g" and "h" charts, are developed and evaluated for monitoring the number of cases between hospital-acquired infections and other adverse events, such as heart surgery complications, catheter-related infections, surgical site infections, contaminated needle sticks, and other iatrically induced outcomes. These new charts, based on inverse sampling from geometric and negative binomial distributions, are simple to use and can exhibit significantly greater detection power over conventional binomial-based approaches, particularly for infrequent events and low "defect" rates. A companion article illustrates several interesting properties of these charts and design modifications that significantly can improve their statistical properties, operating characteristics, and sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) model developed from a national sample, we examine biased selection among one fee-for-service (FFS) plan, one preferred provider organization, and several health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in Massachusetts. The proportions of enrollees in low-risk groups are higher in the HMO plans and lower in the FFS plan. The average age in the FFS plan is 9 years greater than that in the HMO plans. Actual premiums are not consistent with risk levels among HMO plans, resulting in gains in some HMO plans and losses in others as high as 20% compared to expected expenses as computed by the DCG model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]