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
The U.S. health care system achieves a score of 64 out of 100 in the third National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, released last week by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.
Despite pockets of progress, the United States as a whole failed to improve when compared with the top 10 percent of U.S. states, regions, health plans, or health care providers, or the top-performing countries. The scorecard measures the health system across 42 key indicators of health care quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. In particular, the report notes significant erosion in access to care and affordability of care, as health care costs have risen far faster than family incomes.
Most of the data used in the scorecard dates from 2007 to 2009, prior to enactment of the Affordable Care Act. The health reform law targets many of the areas where the U.S. falls short—through measures that expand access to care and seek to make care more affordable, patient-centered, and coordinated.
Visit the National Scorecard page to download the report and check out the infographic.
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Recent Releases
This issue brief explores the promise of e-consultation in health care, an emerging tool that allows primary care clinicians to communicate with specialists about patient matters through e-mail, shared electronic medical record systems, or other computer applications. The authors say the technology holds potential to improve health care quality and reduce specialty care costs. Read more »
The health reform law includes several provisions to encourage greater integration and coordination among health care providers. A new issue brief looks at how these and other strategies might work for safety-net organizations, which face particular challenges in coordinating care for their low-income and uninsured patients. Read more »
New on the Web
This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the final rule governing the new Medicare Shared Savings Program for accountable care organizations (ACOs), which is intended to encourage providers to work together to manage and coordinate care for Medicare beneficiaries. A new post explores the new rule and the flexibility it offers health care providers. In a related blog post, The Commonwealth Fund's Mark Zezza and Stuart Guterman explain the Pioneer Model, a companion ACO program for provider organizations experienced in delivering coordinated care across settings. In the first post, they compared shared-savings payments in the Pioneer Model and the Shared Savings Program. In the second, they look at patient assignment, provider participation, the contract period, the governing board, and multipayer alignment. Read more »
One of the primary activities of the medical home is care coordination, which involves sharing test results with patients and all of their providers, ensuring patients have follow-up appointments, and much more. In a new blog post, The Commonwealth Fund's Melinda Abrams and Karen Crow outline seven key strategies to help health systems effectively measure care coordination as a routine part of medical home activities. Read more »
Providers have proven eager adopters of health care "apps," the software applications used on cell phones and other mobile devices to perform specific tasks, such as charting data points or aggregating information. The new issue of Quality Matters looks at the potential of apps—particularly those that improve communication between providers and patients and promote adherence to recommended treatment—to improve care quality. Read more »
The second episode in the Commonwealth Fund–supported CUNY-TV program "Talking Health" focuses on options for long term-care, ranging from in-home assistance to nursing homes; how to pay for these services; and how to support family caregivers, among other issues. The guests are Lynn Friss Feinberg, senior analyst for AARP's Public Policy Institute, and Larry Minnix, president and CEO of LeadingAge, an association dedicated to improving the lives of seniors. Read more »
As the congressional "super committee" meets to find $1.2 trillion to trim from the federal budget, many are wondering how deficit-reduction efforts will affect Medicare. In a new blog post, The Commonwealth Fund's Caryn Marks and Megan Keenan report on an Oct. 11 Alliance for Health Reform briefing that explored options to reduce federal health care spending and the likely outcomes of various deficit-reduction plans. Visit the Alliance for Health Reform Web site for the webcast, podcast, individual speaker videos, and other resources from the event. Read more »
One of the biggest challenges to health care reform is how to care for people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. This group tends to be sicker, poorer, and more costly than the average person in either program. In this episode of "New Directions in Health Care: The Commonwealth Fund Podcast," The Commonwealth Fund's Mary Jane Koren and Stuart Guterman discuss a number of strategies for helping "dual eligibles" get the services they need and for getting their health care costs under control. Read more »
The Commonwealth Fund has made available new topic-based RSS feeds and the ability to select topics, such as Affordable Health Insurance and Patient-Centered Care, to create a custom feed. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for sharing and distributing Web content. Using an RSS reader or aggregator, you can view data feeds from sites such as The Commonwealth Fund that offer headlines, summaries, and links to the full text. You can also now embed a Commonwealth Fund news widget on your blog or Web site to display the latest Fund releases on your site. Read more »
Fellowships
The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) Media Fellowships on Health Performance is a yearlong program enabling mid-career journalists to pursue a significant reporting project examining health care systems. With Commonwealth Fund support, reporters attend seminars on health system performance and consult with AHCJ fellowship leaders and experts. Fellows may also receive financial support for field reporting, health data, or other research needs. The application deadline for the next class of fellows is November 4, 2011. Visit http://www.healthjournalism.org/secondarypage-details.php?id=701 to apply. Read more »
The Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy is designed to prepare physicians for leadership roles in promoting health policies and practices that improve access to high-quality care for minority, disadvantaged, and vulnerable populations. The application deadline for the 2012–13 fellowship is January 3, 2012. For more information, please visit: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Fellowships/Minority-Health-Policy-Fellowship.aspx. Read more »
The 2012–13 Harkness Fellowships are open to applicants from Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. 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.
Deadlines for receipt of applications are as follows:
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Germany, Norway, and Sweden: December 2, 2011.
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The Netherlands: January 4, 2012.
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Canada: February 14, 2012.
Note that the application process for Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom is now closed.
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