Improving Patient Decision-Making in Health Care

Outlines regional variations within Minnesota in rates of patients with similar conditions receiving elective surgery, the concept of shared decision making, treatment choices for eight conditions, and steps for ensuring patients make informed decisions

Defining and Measuring Successful Emergency Care Networks: A Research Agenda

The demands on emergency services have grown relentlessly, and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has asserted the need for “regionalized, coordinated, and accountable emergency care systems throughout the country.” There are large gaps in the evidence base needed to fix the problem of how emergency care is organized and delivered, and science is urgently needed to define and measure success in the emerging network of emergency care. In 2010, Academic Emergency Medicine convened a consensus conference entitled “Beyond Regionalization: Integrated Networks of Emergency Care.” This article is a product of the conference breakout session on “Defining and Measuring Successful Networks”; it explores the concept of integrated emergency care delivery and prioritizes a research agenda for how to best define and measure successful networks of emergency care. The authors discuss five key areas: 1) the fundamental metrics that are needed to measure networks across time-sensitive and non–time-sensitive conditions; 2) how networks can be scalable and nimble and can be creative in terms of best practices; 3) the potential unintended consequences of networks of emergency care; 4) the development of large-scale, yet feasible, network data systems; and 5) the linkage of data systems across the disease course. These knowledge gaps must be filled to improve the quality and efficiency of emergency care and to fulfill the IOM’s vision of regionalized, coordinated, and accountable emergency care systems.ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE 2010; 17:1297–1305 © 2010 by the Society for Academic Emergency MedicinePeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79228/1/j.1553-2712.2010.00930.x.pd

Our Parents, Ourselves: Health Care for an Aging Population; A Report of the Dartmouth Atlas Project

The new Dartmouth Atlas, funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation, is a report card that analyzes Medicare data to show us where the United States is making progress in patient-centered, evidence-based care for Medicare beneficiaries and where improvement is still needed. It also offers insight into regional variations in care.Filling in the gaps in our knowledge about the state of care across the country will help health care providers, health systems, and patients and families work together to improve care for all older adults.This Dartmouth Atlas report looks at a number of measures from Medicare data, including:The number of days older adults spend in contact with the health care system;Use of high-risk medications;Cancer screening rates (and how they compare with recommendations);30-day hospital readmission rates;Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) rates;Late hospice referral; andThe number of days spent in intensive care.The report also offers a historical look at key practices, comparing data from 2003-05 and 2012

International Profiles of Health Care Systems, 2011

This publication presents overviews of the health care systems of Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Each overview covers health insurance, public and private financing, health system organization, quality of care, health disparities, efficiency and integration, use of health information technology, use of evidence-based practice, cost containment, and recent reforms and innovations. In addition, summary tables provide data on a number of key health system characteristics and performance indicators, including overall health care spending, hospital spending and utilization, health care access, patient safety, care coordination, chronic care management, disease prevention, capacity for quality improvement, and public views

HealthPartners: Consumer-Focused Mission and Collaborative Approach Support Ambitious Performance Improvement Agenda

Presents a case study of a nonprofit healthcare organization that exhibits the six attributes of an ideal healthcare delivery system as defined by the Fund, including information continuity, care coordination and transitions, and system accountability