New research finds that health care consolidation and the integration of hospital and doctor services not only fail to improve quality but also reduce patient satisfaction.
By Morgan N. Fredell, Hagop M. Kantarjian, Ya-Chen Shih, Vivian Ho and Binata Mukherjee
Current U.S. health care spending includes many areas of wasted expenditures. In this study, published in Cancer, the authors explore plans to optimize U.S. health care to provide greater benefits to patients: https://bit.ly/2TmeoDg
By Philip W. Chui, Craig S. Parzynski, Joseph S. Ross, Nihar R. Desai, Hitinder S. Gurm, John A. Spertus, Arnold h. Seto, Vivian Ho and Jeptha P. Curtis
Certificate of need regulations are intended to coordinate new health care services, limit expansion of unnecessary new infrastructure and limit health care costs. This study characterizes the association between state regulations and the appropriateness and outcomes of percutaneous coronary interventions. JAHA: https://bit.ly/2QSWMNa
By Kevin Erickson, Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer, Vivian Ho, Jay Bhattacharya, and Glenn M. Chertow
The authors investigate if dialysis facility consolidation was associated with patient mortality. They find that decreased market competition for these facilities may have led to increased mortality for patients in areas with very few dialysis centers. Read this article in Value in Health at: https://bit.ly/2LXmTUR.
Vivian Ho, director of the Center for Health and Biosciences, examines some of the major reasons critics dislike the Affordable Care Act and offers policy recommendations for refining the legislation in the Annual Review of Medicine.
Nonresident scholar Kevin Erickson is a co-author of a study that examined trends in employment among patients initiating dialysis and in the six months before end stage renal disease.
The author determines that in 2016, freestanding emergency departments in Texas were more likely to be in areas that could yield high profits — i.e., areas with significantly higher household incomes — than in areas of high demand.
The dramatic deterioration in state finances during the Great Recession raised concerns regarding government’s ability to support community health and education. In this study published in the National Tax Journal, the authors find that state revenue declines lead to short and long terms cuts in children’s Medicaid benefits, and declines in elderly Medicaid enrollment, and that larger cuts (nominal and proportional) in education spending versus Medicaid occurred.