Health Affairs

How much health spending is sustainable? Charles Roehrig’s post addressing this question heads the list of most-read Health Affairs Blog posts for February. Next on the list is a post contrasting Medicare and commercial insurance by Diane Archer and Theodore Marmor. Also in the top ten are posts by Larry Wolf and Ashish Jha examining... Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the widely held assumption that physicians having computer access to patients’ test results will reduce testing, doctors who have such access to tests in the ambulatory care setting are more likely to order imaging and lab tests. That’s the finding of a study in the March issue of the Health Affairs, released today. The... Read the rest of this entry »

AHIP’s Summit on Payment Reform and Delivery Transformation, March 5 in Washington, D.C., spotlights efforts across the country to transform the payment system and care delivery. The Summit showcases initiatives where providers and health plans are partnering with success. The sessions will demonstrate the many lessons learned from these partnerships including gaining provider buy-in, governance... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: For more on the Stage 2 proposed rules defining meaningful use of electronic health records, see Larry Wolf’s Health Affairs Blog post. Late in the day on February 23, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the preliminary rules for Stage 2 Meaningful Use.  For those not deep in the... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note:  The ideas expressed in this post draw on the “IPAB Working Group,” a panel of health care experts supported by Pfizer and charged with identifying strategies the Independent Payment Advisory Board might use to lower Medicare spending. Though many of the ideas that follow stem from that meeting, the authors take sole responsibility... Read the rest of this entry »

Now that everyone in government is aggressively looking for cost savings, graduate medical education is again in the crosshairs. Just Google “Medicare and GME funding,” and you will see a number of educated (and uneducated) pundits opining on the pros and cons of the current system of financing. Medicare has recognized the costs of training... Read the rest of this entry »

With unsustainably high costs and tremendous gaps in quality and patient safety, the health care system is ripe with opportunities for improvement. For years, many have seen quality measurement as a means to drive needed change. Private and public payers, public health departments, and independent accreditation organizations have asked health care providers to report on... Read the rest of this entry »

The most-read Health Affairs Blog post for January was Tim Jost’s examination of the first set of briefs filed before the Supreme Court in the litigation over the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The full top-ten list for the month also includes Jerald Winakur’s post on disruptions experienced by many patients during care transitions... Read the rest of this entry »

Despite wide institutional acceptance of a medical professionalism charter that endorses openness and honesty in physicians’ interactions with patients, not all doctors comply, according to a survey whose results are published in the February 2012 issue of Health Affairs, released today. Although about two-thirds of doctors responding to the survey did agree that they should... Read the rest of this entry »

Americans increasingly distrust what they perceive as poorly run and conflicted government. Yet rarely can we see far enough inside the federal apparatus to examine what works and what doesn’t, or to inspect how good and bad decisions come to pass. Comparing the behaviors of two influential federal advisory bodies provides valuable lessons about how... Read the rest of this entry »

November 9, 2011. Time fell back three days ago, leaving me one less hour of daylight to enjoy on a gorgeous Indian summer Wednesday. I’m the attending physician on a busy family medicine inpatient service, and it’s been a long week of patient care and meetings. I rush out of the hospital somewhere near 5 pm,... Read the rest of this entry »

In April 2012 a number of accountable care organizations (ACOs) will begin their contracts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under Medicare’s Shared Savings and Pioneer ACO programs. The latest health policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides an overview of ACOs, their origins, and the current... Read the rest of this entry »

At a recent symposium concerning both saving money and improving patient care, Health Affairs Editor-in Chief Susan Dentzer stated, “It is well established now that one can in fact improve the quality of health care and reduce the costs at the same time.”  This is exactly the principle behind the growing movement toward patient-centered care. ... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: The January 2012 issue of Health Affairs is a thematic volume titled “Confronting The Growing Diabetes Crisis.” Ariella was a different child, thin and shy, when I first met her about a year and a half ago, just after her 6th birthday. Her mother had noted her thirst and hunger, and, despite this... Read the rest of this entry »

In June of 2011, I flew to Washington, D.C. to say good-bye to my friend, Alvin.  I wanted to be there with him and his family during his peaceful passage from this life.  Unfortunately, his end was not peaceful.  It was a nightmare because he, like too many patients being transferred from one level of... Read the rest of this entry »

An extraordinary slowing of the growth in use of health care goods and services contributed to a second year of slow health spending growth in 2010, federal analysts reported in the January issue of Health Affairs. Persistently high unemployment, a substantial loss of private health insurance coverage, lower median household income, and the burden of... Read the rest of this entry »

Despite more than a decade of national focus on patient safety, medical errors and other adverse events occur in one-third of hospital admissions — as much as ten times more than some previous estimates have indicated, according to the most-read Health Affairs article published in 2011. The study, by David Classen and coauthors, appeared in... Read the rest of this entry »

With the passage of the HITECH Act, there has been a push towards the broad and meaningful use of electronic health records.  Critics argue that electronic health record systems are not yet adequately developed.  The systems are ill-designed and clunky; poorly integrated into clinical workflow; and often times create more work without improving the quality of... Read the rest of this entry »

In the December Health Affairs Narrative Matters essay, multiple sclerosis patient Maran Wolston describes how she lost trust in her physician when she found out he was receiving payments from drug companies. Wolston says she was fortunate to be able to look up these payments in a Minnesota state database, and she applauds the establishment of... Read the rest of this entry »

If we’re truly serious about reining in health care costs and improving patient outcomes at the same time, then improving medication adherence is absolutely key. And if we’re serious about improving medication adherence, then the time to strike is now. That’s because there are major opportunities in health reform and major trends in the health... Read the rest of this entry »