The Commonwealth Fund Connection serves as a roundup of Fund publications, charts, and multimedia added to the Commonwealth Fund Web site in the last two weeks, and also offers links to other timely content.
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What's New
Newly enacted national health reform will begin, almost immediately, to transform the U.S. health care system in ways large and small. The changes will increase the number of people with health insurance, and affect how many of us obtain coverage, how care is paid for and delivered, and how it is regulated. A Commonwealth Fund supplement to the Columbia Journalism Review, What Will Happen Under Health Reform—And What's Next?, answers key questions about health reform for journalists and others and provides a timeline of reform milestones.
In particular, the analysis explores:
- How will health reform help more people obtain coverage and access to care? Who will be helped?
- What will happen to health care costs as a result of reform?
- How will people's health insurance choices be affected?
- How will health care delivery change as a result of health care reform?
- What else needs to be done?
Look for a series of Commonwealth Fund briefs on how the new law will affect young adults, women, older adults, and other groups. Read more »
Recent Releases
This issue brief proposes eight strategies for disseminating proven care practices, including: highlighting the evidence base and the relative simplicity of recommended practices; forming a coalition of campaign sponsors; developing practical implementation tools; fostering learning networks; and others. Read more »
Are safety-net health care organizations ready to serve as medical homes? This issue brief reports on the findings of a survey of public hospitals, community health centers, rural health centers, and other safety-net providers that assessed their capacity to serve as medical homes. The survey found that safety-net health organizations have unique strengths, including a proven ability to reach out to and elicit the views of patients, and frequent provision of after-hours care. Yet it also found that safety-net providers face great challenges in delivering comprehensive, team-based care. The researchers propose several policies that would assist safety-net centers in transforming themselves into medical homes. Read more »
An accountable care organization—a model of care being promoted through the new health reform law—is a provider organization that takes on responsibility for meeting the health needs of a defined population, including the total cost of care and the quality and effectiveness of services. This report describes the efforts of three health care provider organizations in Vermont that are planning pilot tests of accountable care organizations, to be launched next year as part of a national learning network. Read more »
Under a typical performance-based incentive program, primary care practices that serve high shares of poor and minority patients would receive lower payments than practices serving fewer such patients, according to this Commonwealth Fund–supported study. The finding adds to the growing concern that these payments, while intended to improve quality of care, may exacerbate health care disparities. Read more »
This Commonwealth Fund–supported study examines four different payment approaches for the increasingly popular patient-centered medical home model, focusing on the incentives and practical issues likely to arise under each approach. Read more »
New On The Web
The new issue of Purchasing High Performance, a quarterly bulletin for employers and others interested in promoting value in health care, looks at what health care reform will mean for employers, explores how existing health care exchanges have fared, describes strategies for ensuring coordinated, patient-centered care from a team of health care vendors, and more. Read more »
The health reform law will make several changes in the way health care is paid for, particularly in public programs. A May 10 briefing sponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund, "Pathways to Payment Innovation in a Post-Health Reform Era," explored the major payment initiatives in the new law and their potential effects.
Panelists—including Mark Miller, executive director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC); Gail Wilensky, a senior fellow at Project HOPE and former chairman of MedPAC; Stuart Guterman, The Commonwealth Fund's assistant vice president for Payment System Reform; and Nick Wolter, CEO of the Billings Clinic in Montana—explored such questions as: What role can payment changes play in moving health care away from the fee-for-service system toward value-based reimbursements? What can be learned from earlier public and private efforts to better align payment incentives with program goals? How will the new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation work to test new approaches, and then scale up the successful ones?
Presentations and other resources from the briefing are available on the Alliance for Health Reform
Web site, and a webcast and podcast of the event are available on the Kaiser Family Foundation's
site.
Read more »
The Commonwealth Fund's online resource, ChartCart, lets users explore a rich collection of data on several health care topics, including health care system efficiency, health care quality, health insurance, health outcomes, and international and state health system performance.
Users can build and download custom chart collections to use for their own presentations. Recently added charts focus on: health care experts' views on the potential success of health care reform; projected spending in the Medicare program over the next decade under various policies; the proportion of Americans who bear high financial burdens from health care spending; and the financial costs to physician offices of insurance administrative complexity.
Let us know what you think of this and other Commonwealth Fund resources, such as the State Data Center and the International Health Policy Data Center, by writing to webeditor@cmwf.org. Read more »
Fellowships
The 2011–12 Harkness Fellowships are open to applicants from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The deadline for receipt of applications is September 13, 2010.
The Commonwealth Fund's Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy and Practice provide a unique opportunity for mid-career professionals—academic researchers, government policymakers, clinicians, managers, and journalists—to spend up to 12 months in the United States conducting a policy-oriented research study, working with leading U.S. health policy experts and gaining in-depth knowledge of not only the U.S. health care system, but also the health care systems in the fellows' home countries. For details and the application form, please visit
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Fellowships/Harkness-Fellowships.aspx.
Read more »
On behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, The Commonwealth Fund is pleased to announce the 2011–12 Australian-American Health Policy Fellowship. The deadline for receipt of applications is August 15, 2010.
The Australian-American Health Policy Fellowship offers a unique opportunity for outstanding, mid-career U.S. professionals—academics, government officials, clinical leaders, decision-makers in managed care and other private health care organizations, and journalists—to spend up to 10 months in Australia conducting research and working with leading Australian health policy experts on issues relevant to both countries. For further information and to obtain an application, please see
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/fellowships/. Read more »