Harris Interactive, Inc.
$344,000
The 2004 International Health Policy Survey
The 2004 International Health Policy Survey, the seventh in an annual series of surveys commissioned by the Fund, will assess health care system performance and responsiveness from the perspective of the consumer. Conducted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the survey will explore the public's views on and experiences with their health care system, focusing on primary and preventive care. It will consider timeliness of health care access, medical errors, doctor-patient communication, patient involvement in decision-making, prescription drug use, and patient choice. Survey findings, which are scheduled for presentation at the Fund's 2004 International Symposium, will highlight the impact of different health care delivery system approaches, and should generate substantial interest among health ministers, policymakers, researchers, and the media. Project staff will submit a paper discussing survey results to the journal Health Affairs for Web publication.

Johns Hopkins University
$75,000
Cross-National Comparisons of Health Systems Quality Data, 2004
Comparisons between the U.S. health care system and health systems of other industrialized countries reveal striking differences in spending, availability and use of services, and health outcomes. This project will prepare a seventh paper in an annual series of analyses of key health data for the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It will provide an update of overall trends in health systems' performance, with an emphasis on spending, coverage, hospital capacity and utilization, pharmaceutical costs, use of technology, trends in the supply and incomes of health professionals, and quality of care. In comparing health system data, the study will illustrate the impact of different national policies on system efficiency. Findings will be presented at the Fund's 2004 International Symposium on Health Care Policy and submitted to the journal Health Affairs for Web publication. An accompanying chartpack with core components from the OECD database will be posted on the Fund's website and updated annually.

Johns Hopkins University
$126,861
International Working Group on Quality Indicators, 2004
The International Working Group on Quality Indicators, initially convened by the Fund in March 1999, aims to improve the measures available for cross-national comparisons of health care quality. In early 2004, the group will release a report to health ministers recommending a minimum set of quality indicators for collecting health system data in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Two additional meetings will be held in April and September 2004 to address operational issues related to data collection and implementation in the five countries, and to expand the core set of indicators to include responsiveness and equity. Participation in the meetings by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has resulted in a Fund collaboration with the OECD to expand the number of industrialized countries in which quality data are collected to 19, as well as to widen the scope of the indicator set. The work conducted in this phase is expected to be completed by the end of 2004, when the project will be transferred to the OECD.

Massachusetts General Hospital
$54,000
Five-Year Evaluation of the Fund's International Program in Health Policy and Practice
Under the direction of David Blumenthal, M.D., the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital will conduct an assessment of the Fund's International Program, last evaluated in 1996. The evaluation team will examine how well the program is meeting its mission, what its major accomplishments have been over the past five years, how it has evolved, and how the program and its individual components could be improved. Activities will include: a review of program activities, publications, and data supplied by the Fund; an online survey of 60 key individuals, supplemented by telephone interviews; and an online survey of Harkness Fellows and their U.S. mentors.

The Nuffield Trust
$60,000
The Commonwealth/Nuffield Trust International Conference on Health Care Quality Improvement, 2004
Since 1999, the Fund and the Nuffield Trust have sponsored a series of annual symposia for U.S. and U.K. government officials, health researchers, and practitioners to promote the exchange of ideas on quality improvement policies and strategies. These transatlantic meetings have focused on such critical issues as patient safety, changing physician and organizational behavior, use of information technology, disparities in health care, and public reporting of provider performance data. A product of the series is an agenda for U.S.-U.K. collaboration on efforts to improve quality, formalized in an agreement signed by the two countries in 2001. Participants at the sixth quality improvement conference, which has been expanded to include Australian representation, will: 1) review the progress of the collaboration and recommend an agenda for the coming year; 2) explore which quality improvement strategies work and which do not; and 3) compare case studies of learning collaboratives in different countries to gauge their impact and sustainability.

The Commonwealth Fund
$207,000
International Symposium on Health Care Policy, Fall 2004
The Fund's seventh annual International Symposium on Health Care Policy will focus on improving health care from the patient's perspective, challenges in moving toward a patient-driven health care delivery system, and innovative approaches to addressing these challenges. In bringing together leading policymakers and researchers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States-and potentially additional G-8 countries-the symposium will highlight how other health systems are: improving responsiveness and access in health care delivery systems; redefining the doctor-patient relationship; incorporating patients' and families' experiences with care into quality improvement initiatives; facilitating patient involvement in treatment decisions; using performance data to give patients choice of providers; and promoting culturally competent care for increasingly diverse populations. Presenters will highlight innovative policies, incentive structures, and health care delivery models that support these changes and improve quality in health care. Commissioned papers from the symposium will be submitted for publication as Health Affairs Web Exclusive articles.

The Commonwealth Fund
$1,158,338
Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy, 2005-06
Support for an eighth class of Harkness Fellows in Health Care Policy will allow the Fund to continue developing promising policy researchers and practitioners from Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In January 2004, the first two Harkness/Health Foundation Fellows were selected, a product of a new partnership between the Fund and the U.K.-based Health Foundation to build policy leadership capacity in the U.K. National Health Service and Department of Health. In October 2003, the first two Packer Fellows in Health Policy were selected, the inaugural appointments in a 'reverse Harkness' program that enables U.S. health policy experts to undertake policy research in Australia.

AcademyHealth
$10,000
5th Internationl Conference on the Scientific Basis of Health Services: Global Evidence for Local Decisions

Ben-Gurion University of The Negev
$44,000
The Emerging Paradigms in Health Systems

University of Bristol
$17,550
The Impact of PHARMAC

The Commonwealth Fund
$11,769
International Health Services Research Funders' Network Annual Meeting

University of British Columbia
$31,992
International Approaches to Central Drug Review