December 26, 2012 - In this essay, Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis looks back over the past year of health reform's implementation, and reflects on her 18 years as president of The Commonwealth Fund.
Annual Report Essay
December 20, 2012 - In this essay, Commonwealth Fund executive vice president and COO John E. Craig reports on the current status of archiving in the foundation sector and recommends ways to improve policies and practices in an area that is too often overlooked.
Annual Report Essay
December 14, 2012 - This report on 59 hospital-based organizations that were members of a collaborative created to support the transition to accountable care finds that that organizations are pursuing different paths toward accountable care.
Fund Report
December 12, 2012 - Average premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 62 percent between 2003 and 2011, rising far faster than incomes did in all states, according to a new Commonwealth Fund analysis that tracks trends in job-based coverage state by state.
Issue Brief
December 12, 2012 - Analysis of employer-sponsored health insurance costs in 41 U.S. metropolitan areas shows a 61 percent average increase in premiums for family coverage from 2003 to 2011, and a 21 percent increase over the past three years.
Data Brief
December 10, 2012 - This new Commonwealth Fund analysis uses publicly reported 30-day hospital readmission rate data to examine whether safety-net hospitals are more likely to have higher readmission rates, compared with other hospitals.
Issue Brief
December 6, 2012 - This issue brief examines how undocumented migrants' access to care is handled in European health systems. Policies and practices vary greatly across countries and have become issues of intense debate.
Issue Brief
December 5, 2012 - The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to pay out at least 80 percent of premiums for medical claims and quality improvement,a s opposed to administrative costs and profits. This issue brief examines whether insurers have reduced administrative costs and profit margins in response to this rule.
Issue Brief
December 3, 2012 - In this Commonwealth Fund–supported study, researchers conducted an online survey to see how people would react to 16 different scenarios involving medical errors, error disclosures or apologies, and compensation offers.
In Brief
November 30, 2012 - This Commonwealth Fund-supported study found that when hospitals implement robust health information technology systems, they improved their performance on key quality-of-care measures.
In Brief
November 30, 2012 - A Commonwealth Fund–supported survey of 21 large, multispecialty medical groups—often viewed by policymakers as the prototypes for accountable care organizations—assessed the extent to which large medical groups are prepared to participate in these kinds of contracts.
In Brief
November 30, 2012 - Commonwealth Fund–supported researchers compared the quality of care provided by primary care physicians who used electronic medical records with those who relied instead on paper records.
In Brief
November 30, 2012 - With Commonwealth Fund support, researchers set out to determine if removing drug copayments could lower costs and decrease the incidence of major coronary events for the larger population of at-risk people who take these medications but have not suffered heart attacks.
In Brief
November 28, 2012 - The Affordable Care Act changes the small-group insurance market substantially beginning in 2014, but most changes do not apply to self-insured plans. This exemption provides an opening for small employers with healthier workers to avoid broader sharing of health care risk. The authors of this brief conclude that regulation of stop-loss or reinsurance can prevent such adverse selection and increase stability in small-group insurance coverage.
Issue Brief
November 19, 2012 - Read overviews of the health care systems of 15 countries—Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.
Fund Report