Health Affairs

On Tuesday, November 8, Health Affairs will release its November 2011 issue, “Linking Community Development & Health.”  The issue explores the connection between improving the health of populations and undertaking efforts to raise incomes, employment and overall economic activity in low-income communities. The issue builds on the work of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and... Read the rest of this entry »

On World Polio Day, October 24, 2011, the Independent Monitoring Board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative issued its third quarterly report.   The Independent Monitoring Board “was established at the request of the Executive Board of WHO [World Health Organization] and the World Health Assembly in 2010, to monitor the implementation and impact of... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: See additional posts on the Medicare Shared Savings Program Final Rule  and related delivery system and payment reform initiatives by Lawrence Casalino and Stephen Shortell,  Douglas Hastings, and Mark McClellan and Elliott Fisher, and Don Berwick and Richard Gilfillan. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) may have done what once... Read the rest of this entry »

Health Affairs is pleased to be a media partner for the World Congress 7th Annual World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress (WHIT) on November 7-8 in Vienna, Virginia. Annually, WHIT gathers hundreds CIOs, CTOs, CIOs, CMIOs and other senior level IT executives to discuss how health care can further be improved with the use and the implementation of... Read the rest of this entry »

An e-alert describing a new report caught my eye. Who would have anticipated these results? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), which announced back in 2007 that it would commit at least $500 million to reversing the childhood obesity problem by 2015, funded the work that led to the report (described below) about the effects on business... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: There are ongoing legal and policy debates regarding the role of the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) in advising the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on relative Medicare payment rates for different types of physician services. Below, Brian Klepper and David Kibbe argue for ending the RUC’s role in the Medicare... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: See additional posts on the Medicare Shared Savings Program Final Rule  and related delivery system and payment reform initiatives by Debra Ness and William Kramer, Douglas Hastings, Mark McClellan and Elliott Fisher, and Don Berwick and Richard Gilfillan. On October 20, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued its final rules for... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: See additional posts on the Medicare Shared Savings Program Final Rule  and related delivery system and payment reform initiatives by Debra Ness and William Kramer, Lawrence Casalino and Stephen Shortell,  Mark McClellan and Elliott Fisher, and Don Berwick and Richard Gilfillan. To answer the question in my title, I think we are making progress, and... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: See additional posts on the Medicare Shared Savings Program Final Rule  and related delivery system and payment reform initiatives by Debra Ness and William Kramer, Lawrence Casalino and Stephen Shortell,  Douglas Hastings, and Don Berwick and Richard Gilfillan. The release yesterday of the regulation to launch the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) marks... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: See additional posts on the Medicare Shared Savings Program Final Rule  and related delivery system and payment reform initiatives by Debra Ness and William Kramer, Lawrence Casalino and Stephen Shortell,  Douglas Hastings, and Mark McClellan and Elliott Fisher. Innovation has revolutionized medicine.  Technology enables us to peer into the depths of the human body to... Read the rest of this entry »

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services today released the long-awaited final rule on the Medicare Shared Savings Prorgram, which sets standards for the creation of accountable care organizations. ACOs are designed to encourage physicians, hospitals, and other providers to coordinate with each other and provide better quality care more efficiently. They were advanced by Elliott Fisher and others in Health Affairs and established in the Affordable Care... Read the rest of this entry »

Significant steps are being taken to implement the Affordable Care Act (ACA) even as the challenges to its constitutionality make their way through the federal courts.  For example, the Institute of Medicine recently released its much-anticipated report to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on the principles and methods that should guide the design... Read the rest of this entry »

The poor legislative and regulatory framework monitoring the quality, sale and transit of medicines in the developing countries, coupled with the scarcity of human and financial resources and a lack of political will, allows the trade in counterfeit and substandard medicines to boom. This problem must be addressed by ensuring that medicines in the developing... Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, October 19, Health Affairs, along with co-sponsors the ABIM Foundation, the California HealthCare Foundation and the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, will present ideas endorsed by leading physicians for Saving Money and Improving Patient Care in Medicare.  A list of speakers and other information is available in this earlier post.  WHEN:                  Wednesday, October... Read the rest of this entry »

As has been widely reported, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Friday that they would stop implementing the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program the long-term care program included in the Affordable Care Act. “For 19 months, experts inside and outside of government have examined how HHS might implement a... Read the rest of this entry »

The much anticipated Institute of Medicine Report on essential health benefits (EHB) was released last week with a series of recommendations that answered some questions and raised many more. The report offers a very important opportunity for researchers, policymakers, providers and patients to fill in some of the white space between the recommendations. Background on EHB... Read the rest of this entry »

The congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction has been charged with finding ways to decrease federal budget deficits by at least $1.2 trillion between fiscal 2012 and 2021. There is broad recognition among policy makers that savings in Medicare should be part of the solution.  Happily, there are measures that would not only save... Read the rest of this entry »

With apologies to my more creative predecessors as Health Wonk Review hosts, there’s no theme today. (After all, how could one top Alistair Cookie?) I will get right to the great posts in this week’s edition. Costs And Premiums. At Managed Care Matters, Joe Paduda explores an apparent disconnect: flat medical costs coupled with rising... Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to let you know of the most-read GrantWatch Blog posts during September—in case you missed them when they first came out. (1) “Philanthropy People Post: Who Is Working Where, Who Has Been Appointed to a Board,” by Health Affairs Senior Editor/GrantWatch, Lee-Lee Prina (September 8). Periodically, I write a blog post focused on people.... Read the rest of this entry »

This Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, a working meeting of innovators, policy and health IT experts, health care providers, patient organizations, technology companies, and government agencies will convene in Washington to assess progress in improving transitions in care and prioritize how the increasing availability of health IT can address some of the most intractable challenges related... Read the rest of this entry »