African-American Women's Breast Cancer Risk
How Revamped Housing Programs Alter Homeless Veteran Outcomes
Impact of the Outpatient Clinic Experience on Retention in Care: Perspectives of HIV-Infected Patients and Their Providers
Baligh R. Yehia, Aaloke Mody, Leslie Stewart, Carol W. Holtzman, Lisa M. Jacobs, Janet Hines, Karam Mounzer, Karen Glanz, Joshua P. Metlay, Judy Shea
In AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Baligh Yehia and colleagues, including Karen Glanz and Judy Shea, try to better understand patient and provider experiences with outpatient HIV clinics. Retention in care is critical to HIV treatment success. While previous research has shown that patient satisfaction with their HIV clinic strongly correlates with HIV outcomes, few have focused on evaluating the clinic experience. Yehia and colleagues invited a sample of patients with varying retention in care and viral suppression patterns to participate in qualitative, semi-structured interviews....
New National Research Center to Study Health Economics of Substance Use Treatment
Geographic Barriers to Care: the Final Frontier?
Although health reform has reduced many financial barriers to care, it has done little to overcome geographic barriers. Two recent studies by LDI Senior Fellows examine disparities in geographic access to specialty care in the United States, specifically gynecologic cancer care and comprehensive stroke treatment. They assess the potential impact of these disparities on health outcomes, and suggest population-based planning as a way to improve access to specialty care.
“Science has delivered solutions. The question for the world is: When will we put it into practice?”
In the mid-eighties, I coordinated a medical genetics clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital. We shared our outpatient unit, the Moore Clinic, with the AIDS Care Program, which began in 1984. Every week, I would see the devastating and shockingly rapid decline of robust young men—men my age—in the waiting room outside my office. I came to recognize the pattern: two men would walk in, one weaker, one stronger.
New Penn Contraceptives-and-The-ACA Study Gets Wide Media Pickup
Transforming Health, In Place
As many of our blog readers know, LDI focuses on ways to improve our health care system. That’s our mission, and we’re sticking to it. But it’s worth remembering that some of the most powerful ways to improve health lie not in the health care system, but in strategies that directly change the places people live, work, and play.
The Importance of Rural Health Clinics
We have new evidence that the presence of federally-certified Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) is associated with greater primary care appointment availability in rural areas, thanks to a new paper in Health Services Research (early view).
Eight Steps to Preventing Pregnancy-Related Mortality in Philadelphia
A new report on maternal deaths in Philadelphia sheds light on a persistent problem and recommends concrete, doable steps to reduce pregnancy-related mortality. The 30 members of the Philadelphia Maternal Mortality Review (MMR) team, including LDI Senior Fellows Sindhu Srinivas and coauthor Pooja Mehta identified and reviewed all cases of Philadelphia residents who died within one year of the end of pregnancy from 2010-2012.
Sizing Narrow Networks
There’s been a lot of talk about "narrow" networks in ACA plans, which trade off limited provider coverage for lower premiums. Using a new integrated dataset of physician networks in plans on the federal and state marketplaces, our latest LDI/RWJF Data Brief describes the breadth of physician networks across all silver plans sold in 2014.
The Skinny on Narrow Networks in Health Insurance Marketplace Plans
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has prompted health plans to increase their use of “narrow networks” of providers as a cost containment strategy. The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) has assembled the first integrated dataset of physician networks for the plans offered on the ACA marketplace. This data brief uses this new resource to describe the breadth of the physician networks in plans sold on the state and federal marketplaces.
Fix Pennsylvania's Medicaid Policy on IUDs
Cross-posted with the Philadelphia Inquirer
Imagine a woman in labor who goes to the hospital with a delivery plan she made in consultation with her obstetrician: yes to antibiotics in labor; no to an epidural for pain control; yes to neonatal circumcision; and yes to having an intrauterine device (IUD) placed immediately after childbirth.
Taking the Science of Financial Incentive Programs to a New Level: An Interview With Scott Halpern
Last week, Scott Halpern, Kevin Volpp and colleagues published a groundbreaking study in the NEJM demonstrating that financial incentives work in helping employees quit smoking, and that the design of the incentives matters.
Does Philadelphia Have Primary Care Deserts?
Cross-posted with the Field Clinic blog
Over the past two years, one of the top health care priorities in Philadelphia has been getting people signed up for health insurance. That is still a huge, unfinished task, but alongside it we need to make sure we have enough doctors in the right places to deliver care. For health care reform to deliver on its promise, people need good access to primary care.