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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
How Many Regional Medical Centers Can Maine Sustain? How Patient Hospital Utilization Can Help Define Structure, Lars Rydell
How Many Regional Medical Centers Can Maine Sustain? How Patient Hospital Utilization Can Help Define Structure, Lars Rydell
Maine Policy Review
Making thoughtful decisions about where various levels of hospital care are to be provided is an important part of controlling overall healthcare costs. Efficient utilization of healthcare resources requires that high-cost and less frequently used high-tech equipment and specialized personnel should be limited to a few tertiary regional medical centers. Lars Rydell uses patient discharge data from the Maine Health Data Organization to suggest that Maine currently has only two hospitals that function as tertiary regional medical centers—Maine Medical Center in Portland and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Policymakers need to think about whether Maine’s population base warrants more …
Obesity In Maine: A Policy Approach, Dora Anne Mills
Obesity In Maine: A Policy Approach, Dora Anne Mills
Maine Policy Review
Compared to earlier generations, Americans are eating more, making poorer nutritional choices, and are less physically active. The result is an “obesity epidemic” facing Maine and the nation. Dora Anne Mills, director of Maine’s Bureau of Health, summarizes the extent, impact, and causes of obesity, and presents policy solutions suggested in public health and medical literature. Because the factors behind the obesity epidemic are so interwoven in the fabric of society, policymakers, businesses and individuals must consider a variety of solutions on the personal, local, state and national levels. Mills warns if we do not act soon and systematically, “our …
Financial Performance Of Hospitals In Maine, 1993-2003, Nancy Kane
Financial Performance Of Hospitals In Maine, 1993-2003, Nancy Kane
Maine Policy Review
Hospitals are the largest single component of healthcare expenditures. Nancy Kane’s study of hospital financial performance fulfills a mandate of Maine’s Dirigo Health Reform Act. By most financial measures, Maine’s hospital industry outperformed hospitals nationwide and in the Northeast during 1993-2003. Still, there is major variability among the state’s hospitals in financial performance. Kane analyzes financial and non-financial characteristics of high-, medium-, and low-performing hospitals, and suggests that not maintaining acute inpatient volume is the biggest problem for low-profitability hospitals. Although no hospital is in imminent danger of failing, Kane suggests a new “blueprint” is needed for Maine’s healthcare system, …
Maine Community Hospitals: Providing High-Quality, Affordable Care, Mary C. Mayhew
Maine Community Hospitals: Providing High-Quality, Affordable Care, Mary C. Mayhew
Maine Policy Review
Mary Mayhew in this commentary provides the perspective of the Maine Hospital Association in response to a study analyzing hospital costs in Maine from 1993-2003.
A Physician’S Perspective, D. Joshua Cutler
A Physician’S Perspective, D. Joshua Cutler
Maine Policy Review
D. Joshua Cutler gives his insights about hospital costs as a physician member of the Commission to Study Maine’s Hospitals.
Mental Health Parity And Beyond: Aligning The Public And Private Systems Of Care For People With Mental Illness, Kitty Purington
Mental Health Parity And Beyond: Aligning The Public And Private Systems Of Care For People With Mental Illness, Kitty Purington
Maine Policy Review
Maine is one of the first states to mandate comprehensive mental health coverage for its citizens under private insurance plans. Mental health advocates nationwide long have lobbied for such parity. In this article, Kitty Purington first provides an overview of the federal and state legislation leading up to the present law. She then compares current parity provisions under private plans with those of MaineCare (Maine’s Medicaid program, reporting that coverage under MaineCare for individuals with serious mental illness still exceeds that which is mandated under private plans. She discusses