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.
Higher costs for complex cancer surgery may be an indicator for worse, rather than better, quality of care, according to new research by the Baker Institute and the University of Texas MDAnderson Cancer Center. The study suggests that lower patient costs achieved by high-volume surgeons can be explained by the lower occurrence of “processes of care”— many of which are taken to avoid or treat complications that can occur during surgery, such as placing arterial lines or providing epidural anesthesia.
Vivian Ho, Marah Short, Thomas AloiaApril 21, 2017
In this study, the authors examine the impact of consolidation among U.S. dialysis providers on: 1) the ability of patients to choose among competing dialysis providers and 2) the market concentration of providers in each hospital service area.