In a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine, nonresident scholar Kevin Erickson — an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine — and his co-authors examined associations between dialysis facility performance and patient experience measures as well as patient, facility and geographic characteristics:
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.
A series of converging trends provided political cover for reforms of long-standing energy subsidies launched by oil-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, but the new policies appear to be designed to update — rather than jettison — rent-based autocratic governance.
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 United States appears less exposed to geopolitical risks affecting its oil supply than at any time since the early 1970s due to fracking, climate change and a more diverse energy supply, according to research by energy fellow Jim Krane and Kenneth B. Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies.
A combination of factors is encouraging Saudi Arabia to consider raising crude oil production capacity beyond the current ceiling of 12.5 million barrels per day. However, an increase in Saudi crude oil production would have consequences for markets and competing forms of energy, as well as for the kingdom's geopolitical stature, writes fellow Jim Krane in an article for Energy Policy.
Krane finds that the coal industry is at greater risk of being targeted by climate-related regulation amid decreasing social acceptance of its use, while the oil industry faces reduced risks due to its lack of substitutes.
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.
The Medicare program’s transition in 2004 to tiered fee-for-service physician reimbursement for dialysis care had the unintended consequence of reducing use of home dialysis. In this paper, authors evaluate whether payment reform influenced dialysis modality assignment.
