Four Health Care Organizations' Efforts to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Costs

Four Health Care Organizations' Efforts to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Costs

January 17, 2012 - Read a new series of case studies of four diverse health care organizations participating in the Brookings–Dartmouth ACO Pilot Program, launched to support selected provider groups that are collaborating with private payers to form accountable care organizations (ACOs). Also available is a recording of recent webinar about lessons from the case studies. Read ›

Beacon Communities: How Are They Evaluating Impact?

Beacon Communities: How Are They Evaluating Impact?

January 13, 2012 - The Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program is funding 17 communities to build and strengthen their health information technology capabilities to enhance care coordination, improve patient and population health, and reduce or restrain costs. This brief examines the various projects and identifies some common challenges. Read ›

High Hospital Readmission Rates Most Closely Tied to Greater Overall Hospitalizations

High Hospital Readmission Rates Most Closely Tied to Greater Overall Hospitalizations

December 15, 2011 - Regions of the United States where discharged hospital patients are readmitted at comparatively high rates are often the same regions where overall hospitalization rates are high, new Commonwealth Fund–supported research finds. Read ›

Commonwealth Fund Leadership Transition

Commonwealth Fund Leadership Transition

January 9, 2012 - Read a message from Samuel C. Fleming, chair of The Commonwealth Fund Board's Search Committee for The Commonwealth Fund's next president. Read ›

Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis to Step Down in Dec. 2012

Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis to Step Down in Dec. 2012

November 21, 2011 - Karen Davis, who since 1995 has led The Commonwealth Fund in its drive to improve the performance of the nation's health care system, announced her last day will be December 31, 2012. Read ›

Health Policy Reform

Visit the Health Reform Resource Center

Use our timeline and interactive tool to explore the provisions and regulations of the Affordable Care Act. New: essential benefits bulletin. Read ›

Health Care Delivery

Accountable Care Organizations: Commonwealth Fund Resources

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released its final regulations for accountable care organizations (ACOs), which are groups of health care providers that provide coordinated care. Check out our ACO Resource Page for Commonwealth Fund publications and blog posts on ACOs. Read ›

Blog

January 16, 2012

How the Affordable Care Act Supports a High-Performance Safety Net ›

This post describes the Affordable Care Act provisions that will help safety-net providers promote coordination and integration of care, capitalize on investments in the capacity of the safety net, and understand and adapt to upcoming changes to safety net financing and payment. Read ›

Newsletters

HEALTH POLICY WEEK IN REVIEW

January 23, 2012 ›

White House report touts exchange progress; HHS to require free contraception with transition period for religous employers; advocates say health law will help close health disparity gap; and more. Read ›

Quality Matters

December 2011/January 2012 ›

A look at the development and use of patient-reported outcome measures, and an interview with Eugene Nelson, D.Sc., M.P.H., director of the Population Health Measurement Program at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Read ›

Multimedia

Multimedia · All Multimedia ›

2011 International Health Ministers' Policy Roundtable

Podcast · All Podcasts ›

Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums Double but Affordable Care Act to Reverse Trend

Sandy Hausman looks at a new study on state trends for employer-sponsored insurance premiums and deductibles that found a 50 percent increase in premiums between 2003 and 2010, and a 63 percent increase in the employee share of the premium for a family plan. Also discussed are Affordable Care Act provisions that should help lower premiums.

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Data Centers

STATE DATA CENTER

Interactive U.S. Map Offers State Rankings and Results

Visit an interactive map to view state-specific rankings and results compared to benchmarks, and to view the number of lives and dollars each state could save by achieving benchmark levels of performance. You can also compare states and generate custom tables and bar charts. Go ›

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH POLICY CENTER

Browse Publications and Create Custom Charts

Visit the new International Health Policy Center to browse content by country or topic and create custom tables and charts using data from our international health policy surveys from 2006 to 2011. Go ›

Why Not The Best?

A Health Care Quality Improvement Resource

WhyNotTheBest.org is a quality improvement resource for health care professionals. It offers a powerful benchmarking tool to compare hospitals on more than 100 measures of health care quality and safety, patient experiences, and outcomes, as well as an interactive map to explore health system performance at the national, state, and regional levels. Go ›