Breaking the Barriers to Specialty Care: Practical Ideas to Improve Health Equity and Reduce Cost - Striving for Equity in Specialty Care Full Report

Tremendous health outcome inequities remain in the U.S. across race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and geography—particularly for those with serious conditions such as lung or skin cancer, HIV/AIDS, or cardiovascular disease.These inequities are driven by a complex set of factors—including distance to a specialist, insurance coverage, provider bias, and a patient's housing and healthy food access. These inequities not only harm patients, resulting in avoidable illness and death, they also drive unnecessary health systems costs.This 5-part series highlights the urgent need to address these issues, providing resources such as case studies, data, and recommendations to help the health care sector make meaningful strides toward achieving equity in specialty care.Top TakeawaysThere are vast inequalities in access to and outcomes from specialty health care in the U.S. These inequalities are worst for minority patients, low-income patients, patients with limited English language proficiency, and patients in rural areas.A number of solutions have emerged to improve health outcomes for minority and medically underserved patients. These solutions fall into three main categories: increasing specialty care availability, ensuring high-quality care, and helping patients engage in care.As these inequities are also significant drivers of health costs, payers, health care provider organizations, and policy makers have a strong incentive to invest in solutions that will both improve outcomes and reduce unnecessary costs. These actors play a critical role in ensuring that equity is embedded into core care delivery at scale.

Gibbon Surgical Review, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2023

Table of Contents 6 - Dr. Thomas Mütter’s Legacy: The Mütter Museum 8 - The History and Progression of Laparoscopic Surgery 10 - An Interview with Dr. Andrew Morgan 12 - A Surgical Perspective of the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Healthcare 14 - An Interview with Dr. Deviney Rattigan 16 - The Importance of Mentorship in Improving the Outlook and Perception of General Surgery Among Medical Students 18 - Surgical Fellow Spotlight: An Interview with Dr. Steve Gurien 20 - Point of Care Ultrasound in General Surgery Training 22 - Surgical Resident Spotlight: An Interview with Hamza Rshaidat 24 - Research Spotlight: An Interview with Hien Dang, Ph.D 26 - Where Are All the Minorities in Surgery

Identifying Telemedicine Services to Improve Access to Specialty Care for the Underserved in the San Francisco Safety Net

Safety-net settings across the country have grappled with providing adequate access to specialty care services. San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, serving as the city's primary safety-net hospital, has also had to struggle with the same issue. With Healthy San Francisco, the City and County of San Francisco's Universal Healthcare mandate, the increased demand for specialty care services has placed a further strain on the system. With the recent passage of California Proposition 1D, infrastructural funds are now set aside to assist in connecting major hospitals with primary care clinics in remote areas all over the state of California, using telemedicine. Based on a selected sample of key informant interviews with local staff physicians, this study provides further insight into the current process of e-referral which uses electronic communication for making referrals to specialty care. It also identifies key services for telemedicine in primary and specialty care settings within the San Francisco public health system. This study concludes with proposals for a framework that seek to increase collaboration between the referring primary care physician and specialist, to prioritize institution of these key services for telemedicine

The 2021 Physician Pain Management Questionnaire Pilot Study

This report outlines the methodology, development, and fielding of the 2021 Physician Pain Management Questionnaire pilot study

Organizing for Higher Performance: Case Studies of Organized Delivery Systems

Offers lessons learned from healthcare delivery systems promoting the attributes of an ideal model as defined by the Fund: information continuity, care coordination and transitions, system accountability, teamwork, continuous innovation, and easy access

The Evolution of Telehealth From Pre-COVID-19 Pandemic Through A Hybrid Virtual Care Delivery Model: A Pediatric Hospital’s Journey

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed care delivery and influenced telehealth adoption by rehabilitation professionals and their patients. The purpose of this paper is to describe a pediatric health system’s telehealth services pre-pandemic and how those services were scaled during the pandemic. A secondary aim is to provide a roadmap for the operational delivery of telehealth and rehabilitation services, including transition to a hybrid care delivery model. Findings suggested that telehealth can be rapidly scaled to address patient healthcare needs for an early intervention population during a pandemic. Telehealth use during the pandemic helped ensure continuity of care and likely reduced the risk of exposure to patients and staff to the virus. Benefits included enhanced access to care, and savings in time and money for families. Interestingly, as the pandemic declined, the use of telehealth services declined due to patient preference, with many families opting to request a return to in-person care. &nbsp

Vol. 43, No. 2: Summer 2018

https://commons.und.edu/ndm-archive/1006/thumbnail.jp

Baystate Medical Practices Annual Report - 2019

https://scholarlycommons.libraryinfo.bhs.org/bmpannual_report/1004/thumbnail.jp