Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Canada's Generalist Training: Are There Lessons For The United States?, Lee Hawkins

National Health Policy Forum

Addressing the premise of an inappropriate skewing of the U.S. medical education system toward specialty medicine, this issue brief compares and contrasts the U.S. and Canadian graduate medical education (GME) systems, including the organization and financing of each. The issue brief also explores various lessons that might be learned from the Canadian GME system, such as full integration of primary care and GME and the use of incentives to achieve desired policy goals.

What's Happening: June 23, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

What's Happening: June 9, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

What's Happening: May 26, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Reducing Medical Error: Can You Be As Safe In A Hospital As You Are In A Jet?, Lisa Sprague

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief looks at the incidence of error in the health care system, opportunities for a systems-based approach to error reduction, and changes needed in health system culture and training. The lessons of human factors research are considered, with examples of their application in the aviation industry. The paper reviews some error-reduction and patient-safety initiatives undertaken by private-sector organizations and by the Veterans Health Administration.

Contrasting Views Of Physicians And Nurses About An Inpatient Computer-Based Provider Order-Entry System, Todd W. Gress, Michael Weiner, David R. Thiemann, Mollie Jenckes, Stephanie L. Reel, Steven F. Mandell, Eric B. Bass

Internal Medicine

Objective: Many hospitals are investing in computer-based provider order-entry (POE) systems, and providers’ evaluations have proved important for the success of the systems. The authors assessed how physicians and nurses viewed the effects of one modified commercial POE system on time spent patients, resource utilization, errors with orders, and overall quality of care.

Design: Survey.

Measurements: Opinions of 271 POE users on medicine wards of an urban teaching hospital: 96 medical house officers, 49 attending physicians, 19 clinical fellows with heavy inpatient loads, and 107 nurses.

Results: Responses were received from 85 percent of the sample. Most physicians and nurses …

What's Happening: April 28, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Substance Abuse Prevention: Could An Improved D.A.R.E. Program Help Bridge The Gap Between Research And Practice?, Colomba Sirica

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief provides background information on the popular Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, begun in 1983 and supported by education and law enforcement communities throughout the country to provide drug abuse prevention programs in schools. It describes recent efforts to conduct evaluative studies to assess the short- and long-term impact of the D.A.R.E. curriculum on drug-using behavior of children and youth and the new dialogue opening between D.A.R.E. proponents and the research community.

What's Happening: April 14, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Hipaa As A Regulatory Model: Early Experiences And Future Prospects, Karl Polzer

National Health Policy Forum

In the context of the debate over bolstering consumer protection in health care without imposing excessive costs or onerous regulatory requirements, this paper examines the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) as a regulatory model. The paper reviews the provisions of the legislation, examines the roles of the Department of Labor and the Health Care Financing Administration in implementing HIPAA, raises issues surrounding implementation and enforcement, and examines the usefulness of the HIPAA model as a vehicle for applying consumer protection measures.

What's Happening: March 31, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Margins As Measures: Gauging Hospitals' Financial Health, Karen Matherlee

National Health Policy Forum

Recognizing the considerable controversy over ways to measure hospitals' financial viability, this issue brief reviews various ways to assess their fiscal strength. The paper looks first at operating margins, traditional measures that some experts say are inadequate when considered alone. It then explores several recommendations: (a) net income, liquidity and cash flow, and debt burden, suggested by the National Advisory Panel; (b) factors that determine year-to-year changes in hospitals costs, such as hospital input price inflation, changes in care patterns, and the complexity of patients treated, put forth by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission; and (c) 35 financial indicators and …

Examining The Links Between Retirement And Health Insurance: Implications For Medicare Eligibility, Nora Super

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief examines trends in labor force participation and health care coverage for early retirees, as well as the relationship between retirement and health insurance and health status.

What's Happening: March 17, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

What's Happening: March 10, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Providing Outpatient Prescription Drugs Through Medicare: Can We Afford To? Can We Afford Not To?, Robin J. Strongin

National Health Policy Forum

The continuing debate over the issue of Medicare coverage for outpatient prescription drugs gave rise to this background paper, which discussed several key questions: Whose responsibility is it to provide coverage? Who should be covered? What should be covered? Who should pay for prescription drug coverage? How should costs be controlled? In addition, the paper explored options for structuring a Medicare outpatient prescription drug benefit. It also contained a glossary.

Welfare Reform And Its Impact On Medicaid: An Update, Judith D. Moore

National Health Policy Forum

Welfare reform, enacted in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), had a profound impact on the Medicaid program, delinking Medicaid from the new TANF program and for the first time allowing Medicaid eligibility to be divorced from welfare status. This paper reviews the national impact of this decoupling, describing research, implementation activities, and the impact of new state welfare programs on health programs in general.

What's Happening: February 17, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Biological Terrorism: Is The Health Care Community Prepared?, Robin J. Strongin

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief provides an overview of biological warfare and discusses the role of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and state health departments in detecting biologic agents. The brief also highlights the issue of threat assessment and discusses ways to improve the current level of preparedness as well as steps needed to convert the public health system into our best form of civil defense.

Medicare Hmo Pullouts: What Do They Portend For The Future Of Medicare+Choice?, Nora Super

National Health Policy Forum

National policymakers became alarmed in the fall of 1998 when, contrary to expectations, nearly 100 Medicare HMOs announced their decisions to pull out of Medicare in certain areas or to reduce their service areas. This issue brief explores the reasons plans withdrew from certain areas, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 provisions that most directly influenced these decisions, the impact of the withdrawals on Medicare beneficiaries, and policy options for ensuring the viability of the Medicare+Choice program.

What's Happening: February 3, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Filling The Geriatric Gap: Is The Health System Prepared For An Aging Population?, Janet Firshein

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief explores the field of geriatrics, the ways practitioners meet the health care needs of the elderly, training gaps, and the impact of Medicare payment policies on the delivery of health care to older Americans.

What's Happening: January 20, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

What's Happening: January 6, 1999, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Positively Influencing Physicians: The Levers Of Influence, William Martin

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

Health Plan Quality: Factors Influencing Hospital Participation In Health Plans, Robert Latimer Barber

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

The professional and popular literatures are full of reports of surveys and studies purporting to rate health plans. Health maintenance organizations and other organizations are surveying member satisfaction. Accreditation of health plans is receiving increased attention. Interest is growing in plans' performance in the areas measured by the Health Plan Employers' Data and Information Set (HEDIS). The factors measured in current ratings and accreditation systems are not important to hospitals for evaluating health plan participation. There are factors in a health plan's performance that are important to and either beneficial or detrimental to hospitals. This paper proposes factors upon which …

The Influence Of Health Care Service Quality On Patient Satisfaction, Mary Ann Hackmeister

Theses

This thesis will concentrate on the delivery of health care services and the influence the level of service quality has on patient satisfaction.

The health care industry continually experiences changes. but the changes that have occurred over the past five to ten years have occurred quite rapidly. These changes have altered the way that patients view delivery of health care services. Those within the industry itself, including physicians, administrators. and staff members, have been faced with many challenges.

From a competitive standpoint alone, today's health care environment is drastically different from the previous decade. Declining revenues for the health care …

Estimating Costs Of Post-Abortion Services. General Hospital Aurelia Valdivieso, Oaxaca, Mexico, Population Council

Reproductive Health

Health care systems around the world are facing problems providing quality care with increasingly constrained resources. While modern practices and diagnostic tests have made pregnancy a much less risky event than in the past, not all pregnancies have a favorable outcome. Spontaneous abortion occurs in 15–45% of all known pregnancies, and studies show that 25% of all obstetric/gynecology hospital admissions are for incomplete abortion. Given the high level of resources devoted to treating this condition, it is imperative to develop cost-effective methodologies to provide quality care. Unsafe abortion performed by untrained and inexperienced providers is the fourth leading cause of …

What Explains Wage Differences Between Union Members And Covered Nonmembers?, Edward J. Schumacher

Health Care Administration Faculty Research

An individual covered by a collective bargaining agreement but who is not a union member is estimated to earn about 13% lower wages than a union member. Sectors with relatively few covered nonmembers are associated with a large coverage differential, while sectors with high proportions of covered nonmembers are associated with small differentials. This suggests freeriders either weaken the bargaining position of the union or weak bargaining positions increase the incentive to freeride. Only a modest amount of this differential is accounted for by unmeasured ability, the probationary period associated with newly hired union workers, or union status misclassification.

What's Happening: December 23, 1998, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.