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ABSTRACT: Adoption of health information technology (HIT) is a key effort in improving care delivery, reducing costs of health care, and improving the quality of health care. Evidence from electronic health record (EHR) use suggests that HIT will play a significant role in transforming primary care practices and chronic disease management. This article shows that EHRs and HIT can be used effectively to manage chronic diseases, that HIT can facilitate communication and reduce efforts related to transitions in care, and that HIT can improve patient safety by increasing the information available to providers and patients, improving disease management and safety.
Primary care 06/2012; 39(2):327-44. · 0.81 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In the primary use of health data, patient health information in electronic health records (EHRs) directly informs each individual's care. In secondary use, patient data would be aggregated to improve health care delivery, yet several technological and policy barriers may slow implementation-but may be amenable to intervention.
Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources 01/2012; 38(1):34-40, 1.
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ABSTRACT: In his memoir It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong argues that winning the world's greatest bike race does not depend in the final analysis on sophisticated bicycles.(1) Although advanced equipment is very important, winning depends more on athletes' riding skills, physical conditioning, and race-day effort. Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are the bicycles of modern health system reform, attracting considerable attention as promising vehicles for achieving better care, better population health, and lower costs.(2) Indeed, we have argued that health care delivery organizations do need new payment models(3) like ACOs . . .
New England Journal of Medicine 12/2011; 366(2):e4. · 53.30 Impact Factor
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The American journal of managed care 12/2011; 17(12):e459-61. · 2.46 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The Beacon Community Program is part of a federal strategy for using health information technology as a foundation to improve the nation's health care system. In particular, Beacon Communities seek to increase the quality and efficiency of health care, improve the health of individuals and communities, and inform similar initiatives in other parts of the country. Each Beacon Community has set quality, efficiency, and health-related goals, and each is deploying multiple technology-enabled interventions to achieve them. Yet achieving large-scale and sustainable health care improvement also requires an implementation framework that can foster innovation and continuous learning from results. Based on the early experiences of the seventeen diverse Beacon Communities, this paper describes program design features that characterize how these initiatives are organized.
Health Affairs 04/2011; 30(4):782-8. · 4.31 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Nested within a growing national consensus that the performance of the US healthcare system needs to be improved are largely distinct "tribes" of experts with varying interpretations of what would constitute improvement: the quality improvement tribe, the payment reform tribe, the consumer engagement tribe, and the HIT tribe.
The American journal of managed care 12/2010; 16(12 Suppl HIT):SP13-8. · 2.46 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Congress and the Obama administration are considering redirecting federal spending on the Medicaid disproportionate-share hospital (DSH) program to help pay for health reform. In this paper, we propose linking federal Medicaid DSH funding to state-level Medicaid enrollment or uninsured populations, or both. This approach could produce as much as $44 billion in federal savings over time without exposing hospitals to uncertain or across-the-board spending cuts. It could also gradually address state variations in Medicaid DSH funding. We also offer ideas to ensure that DSH spending is more directly connected than it is now to improvements in care for vulnerable populations.
Health Affairs 09/2009; 28(5):w926-36. · 4.31 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: State public employee health plans (PEHPs) provide health benefits for millions of state and local workers, retirees, and their dependents nationwide. This paper explores major issues and challenges that PEHP leaders and state policymakers are addressing. These include the perennial challenge of funding benefits for a diverse and aging workforce; new accounting standards affecting public employers; and the changing relationship between states, retired public employees, and the Medicare program. Interviews with PEHP executives explored whether these are incremental challenges to which states can effectively adapt, or whether these challenges will catalyze broader and lasting change in the public employee and retiree health benefits arena.
Health Affairs 25(6):1518-28. · 4.31 Impact Factor
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Aaron McKethan
North Carolina medical journal 68(3):208-9.
