What's New with HCFO - December 19, 2008 (Print All Articles)
The Consequences of Reporting on Health Care Quality
With a growing public interest in addressing problems in the current health care system, a variety of health care reform proposals are underway. A common theme includes recognition that high quality care should be rewarded and that consumers need information to identify the individual providers and hospitals which offer this type of care. But does the clearly desirable goal of promoting high quality health care in turn create disparities?
The first step in identifying high quality health care providers is measuring performance. Generally, quality reports capture outcome measures1 or process measures.2 In 2001, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began a series of quality initiatives designed to improve care to Medicare beneficiaries. Using a standardized measurement system, data are collected and reported on nursing homes, home health agencies, hospitals, and kidney dialysis facilities.3 More recently, CMS established the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), a voluntary program which provides financial incentives to providers who report quality measure data on submitted claims.4
Private health plans are also developing quality reporting systems, with mixed reviews. Some physicians question whether a scorecard which tracks specified measures is a true representation of the quality of care being provided to patients.5 On the other hand, insurers suggest that providing incentives based on quality scores, as through pay-for-performance programs, will change provider behavior. Moreover, while paying for performance can lead providers to work toward top quality scores, the public disclosure itself is a strong inducement to improve quality and score well. Nevertheless, gathering and reporting quality information on health care providers can generate both intended results and unintended results.
Intended Results
In medicine, as in any profession, there is a natural tendency to work to a higher potential when faced with information about peers who produce a superior result. Thus, the collection and disclosure of quality of care is likely to have a positive effect on providers, including motivating them to use clinical practice guidelines. The information could also serve as the basis for developing quality improvement programs within provider organizations.
As patients have increasingly greater access to information on high performing providers, they will be more likely to seek out those providers.6 Over time, variation in the quality of care could be reduced and patients are likely to receive increasingly better care, thereby improving the overall health status of this country. Moreover, referring physicians and health plans may benefit from information on high quality providers.
Unless consumers use comparative quality reports, their value is lost. Thus, educating the consumer on the availability of these reports is paramount. To improve uptake, information must also be easily accessible, understandable, and viewed as trustworthy. While evidence to date does not demonstrate a wholesale realization of the intended consequences of quality reporting, transparency and the fact that providers are more accountable by such disclosures is, in and of itself, a positive step.7
Unintended Results
At the opposite end of the spectrum are the potential unintended results which may emerge as quality information is publicized and becomes the basis for rewarding providers. For example, physicians may “practice to the test,” meaning they are more likely to focus on measured areas of quality at the expense of important, yet unmeasured areas.8 Moreover, physicians, hospitals and other providers may “cherry pick” healthy patients and avoid the sickest and most complex patients in order to improve quality scores. These actions disproportionately affect underserved/minority populations, resulting in an increase in health care disparities. Providers may also avoid certain populations—such as minorities and those with low socioeconomic status—if they believe their performance measures and target goals would be negatively impacted. Ultimately, access to high quality care for these populations could be curtailed.9
The quandary of whether public quality reporting improves quality for all was raised in a debate on public reporting of hospital acquired infection rates. Participants at a symposium of the Infectious Diseases Society of America noted that such reporting “could encourage hospitals and physicians to avoid sicker patients, use intervention targets that may not be appropriate for all patients, and diminish the role of patient preferences and clinical judgment.”10
In a study examining the impact of New York’s coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) report cards, researchers noted that while report cards had the potential to improve the quality of health care, “the release of New York’s CABG report card was associated with a significant increase in racial and ethnic disparities in CABG use in New York compared with other states in the years immediately after the report card’s release.”11 After nine years, the disparities returned to pre-release levels, suggesting that over time, physicians may have determined that race was not a good risk indicator or realized that report cards had little relevance to decision-making by patients or referring physicians.12
Conclusion
Quality reporting is likely to continue and expand. The challenge for those structuring the systems is to ensure that the intended results of quality reporting are reached, while the unintended results are eliminated. The key is to maintain a rigorous and useful reporting system which does not disadvantage certain populations.
Moreover, quality reporting systems must be designed in such a way as to prevent disparate care. For example, reports should be adequately risk-adjusted to eliminate the likelihood that providers will avoid treating certain groups of patients, thereby exacerbating health care disparities. In addition, by emphasizing measures of appropriate care, physicians are more likely to embrace all patients who would benefit from certain treatments, regardless of their socioeconomic status or race. A focus on process measures, rather than outcome measures may also help reduce the potential for increased disparities insofar as process data is not as closely tied to patient characteristics. Finally, adjusting measures for race and socioeconomic status would help to alleviate the potential for quality reports to create a bias against treating certain patient groups.13
For related HCFO-sponsored research, see the grants listed below and see www.hcfo.net.
Title: The Impact of Pay for Performance on Hospitals that Care for Minorities and the Poor
Institution: Harvard University School of Public Health
Principal Investigator: Ashish Jha, M.D., M.P.H.
Grant Duration: February 2008 - January 2009
The researchers will examine the impact of financial incentives to improve quality on hospitals that care for minority or other underserved populations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have implemented pay for performance (P4P) demonstrations, and are considering implementing P4P nationally. However, the impact of P4P has not been widely evaluated. Hospitals that care for underserved populations may have greater potential for quality improvement; conversely these facilities lack the tools and resources to improve quality and compete for the additional resources. The researchers will examine changes in quality for hospitals in the Medicare Premier P4P Demonstration that serve disadvantaged populations (minority and poor); these changes will be compared with changes in hospitals in the demonstration that do not serve disadvantaged populations and with hospitals not in the demonstration (and not subject to P4P) that serve disadvantaged populations. The objective of the project is to provide more information about the impact of P4P on hospitals that serve disadvantaged populations, and help policymakers to design incentive systems that encourage higher quality care without disproportionately harming hospitals that care for these populations.
Title: Paying Physician Group Practices for Quality: A Regional Natural Experiment
Institution: University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Principal Investigator: Douglas A. Conrad, Ph.D.
Grant Duration: October 2007 - March 2009
The researchers will evaluate the impact of a quality-based scorecard and financial incentives developed by Premera Blue Cross in Washington State. They will compare clinics exposed to two waves of a progressive “paying for quality” intervention with a control group of clinics not subject to the intervention. Specifically, the researchers will assess the joint effects of quality-based financial incentives and the quality scorecard on physicians’ clinical quality, patient satisfaction, and efficiency in caring for patients. They will distinguish the effects on quality, patient satisfaction, and efficiency of providing information to medical groups relative to their performance on an array of clinical quality measures from the incremental effect on quality and efficiency of clinical quality-based financial incentives. The objective of the project is to assist organizational leaders and public policymakers to craft more cost-effective quality incentives.
Title: Examining the Quality of Hospital Care and Simulating the Impact of Several Pay-for-Performance Scoring Methods on Hospital Rankings
Institution: Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy
Principal Investigator: Joel S. Weissman, Ph.D./Lisa I. Iezzoni, M.D.
Grant Duration: March 2007 - February 2009
The researchers will examine the quality of hospital care. Using patient-level data from a large sample of hospitals collected by the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA), they will estimate the proportion of patients receiving recommended care, create new measures of patient care quality, and simulate the impact of several pay-for-performance (P4P) scoring methods on hospital rankings. They will also examine the extent to which care varies by race, ethnicity, or insurance status within and across hospitals. The objective of the study is to assist CMS, other public and private payers, and accrediting organizations in developing strategies to improve hospital performance measurement and payment methods, and, ultimately, the quality of patient care.
Title: Involving Consumers in Physician Choice: Making Data into Useable Information for Chronically Ill Patients in Consumer-Directed Health Plans Performance Measurement and Reporting
Institution: Massachusetts General Hospital
Principal Investigator: David Blumenthal, M.D.
Grant Duration: March 2006 - December 2008
What tools will consumers need to help select high performing physicians, within CDHPs? Physician performance data is one of the tools that can be used to help consumers make these decisions. However, there are important opportunities and challenges facing consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) trying to engage consumers in using physician performance data (PPD). The specific aims of the project are: 1) to develop methods for informing consumers about physician clinical performance; 2) to test the effectiveness of these methods in helping consumers with chronic conditions in CDHPs to make an informed choice of primary care physician (PCP); 3) to explore how consumer characteristics affect their ability to understand PPD and their response to that data. The objective of this study is to understand how and whether PPD can be appropriately and effectively used in CDHPs.
Title: Strategies to Reduce Health Care Providers’ Administrative Burden Related to Quality Performance Measurement and Reporting
Institution: Center for Studying Health Systems Change
Principal Investigator: Paul Ginsburg, Ph.D.
Grant Duration: February 2006 - July 2007
How do quality reporting requirements affect hospitals? What strategies do hospitals and quality reporting organizations use to minimize burden? What forces facilitate or impede these efforts? Using a case study approach and building on the HSC’s ongoing tracking of local health care markets across the country, the researchers focused on four communities (Boston, Indianapolis, Seattle, and Orange County, CA) with a high level of reporting and performance measurement activity. In these communities, the researchers: (1) confirmed the programs that hospitals reported participating in during the Round 5 site visits; (2) confirmed what the reporting requirements are for each program based on background work for the project; and (3) indicated the ways in which hospitals believe reporting requirements of the programs differ enough to meaningfully increase burden. The objective of this study was to explore the burden on hospitals of quality reporting in four communities, extrapolate lessons learned for other communities with similar attributes, and draw implications for policymakers and private sector decision makers seeking to reduce administrative burdens associated with this type of reporting.
Title: Using Physician Profiling Software to Evaluate the Practice Efficiency of Physician Specialists
Institution: University of Southern Maine
Principal Investigator: J. William Thomas, Ph.D.
Grant Duration: July 2003 - June 2004
How does examining the feasibility of using episode-based physician profiling systems help to evaluate the practice efficiency of physician specialists? The researchers completed a HCFO-funded study in which they evaluated the accuracy of seven primary care provider profiling methodologies and examined the implications of differences in accuracy for assessments of physician performance. In this project, the researchers focused on two of the seven methodologies which were episode-based, Episode Treatment Groups (ETGs) and the MEDecision Practice Review System (PRS), to examine 15 (10 medical and 5 surgical) specialties. The objective of the project was to determine whether the risk-adjustment methodologies used to generate reliable profiles in a primary care setting can be extended to specialists given the unique factors that arise in profiling specialty physicians.
Title: The Impact of Performance Reporting on Consumer and Physician Organization Behavior
Institution: Harvard School of Public Health
Principal Investigator: Meredith B. Rosenthal, Ph.D..
Grant Duration: March 2003 - October 2004
How are public “report cards” on consumer and physician behavior being disseminated? The researchers evaluated PacifiCare’s Quality Index report cards which provide a relative performance assessment of provider groups in selected areas of clinical, service and administrative quality. The researchers tested (1) how new and continuing health plan enrollees use comparative quality information to select a physician group; (2) how mobilization of consumer choice based on comparative quality information drives physician group performance improvements; and (3) how physician groups are responding to performance measurement when data are used for confidential benchmarking only while other dimensions of quality are reported to consumers. The objective of the project was to fill an information gap concerning the value of publicly reported quality information and to provide guidance to public and private decision makers on the measurement and dissemination of provider quality information.
Title: Assessing the Impact of a Public Report on Hospital Quality: A Controlled Experiment in the State of Wisconsin
Institution: University of Oregon
Principal Investigator: Judith H. Hibbard, Dr.P.H.
Grant Duration: September 2001 - May 2005
How do hospitals react to public reports of their quality and how do such reports influence consumers’ perceptions of hospital quality? This study, conducted by researchers at the University of Oregon, is assessing whether public reports of quality lead to improvement efforts within hospitals. The researchers also are studying whether the public reports create a general impression among consumers about the quality and safety of hospitals in the community. Hibbard and her colleagues are working with The Alliance, a large purchasing group based in Madison, Wisconsin, that will disseminate the public report. The researchers are conducting a controlled experiment in which hospitals are assigned to one of the following three groups. Hospitals in The Alliance, 25 in the region surrounding Madison, will be included in the public report. The remaining 100 hospitals in Wisconsin will be separated by size (large and small) and randomly assigned to either the other treatment group or the control group. The second treatment group will receive a report of their own performance compared with other hospitals that will not be made public. The control group will not receive any reports. The objective of the study is to assess whether public reporting of hospital quality motivated improved behavior and performance and how public reporting affects consumer perceptions of hospital quality.
Title: A Comparative Evaluation of Risk-Adjustment Methodologies for Profiling Physician Practice Efficiency
Institution: University of Southern Maine
Principal Investigator: J. William Thomas, Ph.D.
Grant Duration: May 1999 - April 2002
How accurate are existing physician profiling products used by health plans at predicting/identifying resources used by physicians and physician groups? Researchers at the University of Michigan evaluated these products to answer the following questions: 1) Do some physician profiling risk-adjustment methodologies produce more accurate profiles of physician practice efficiency than others? If so, how do the methodologies compare? 2) How does the number of patients managed by a physician affect the accuracy of the physician’s practice efficiency profile? and 3) Are differences in accuracy among profiling systems’ risk-adjustment methodologies large enough to affect rankings of physicians’ practice efficiency? How consistent are physician practice efficiency rankings from different profiling systems, and how consistent are the systems in identifying outlier physicians? As the researchers noted, physician-profiling information “can be used to select network providers, channel patients, and identify both exemplary practice styles and those that suggest a need for education. Also, reports indicate that profiles are used by health plans for identifying physicians for de-selection from networks.” The objective of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the profiling methodologies being marketed to health plans and examine the implications of differences in accuracy among the tools.
Title: Methods to Present Quality Information to Assist Consumers to Make Health Plan Decisions
Institution: University of Oregon
Principal Investigator: Judith H. Hibbard, Dr. P.H.
Grant Duration: January 1999 - March 2000
How can information on health plan quality be most effectively presented to consumers? Researchers at the University of Oregon used laboratory studies to examine how consumers process and integrate information in making choices about health plans. While there are many health plan “report cards” available to consumers, little is known about how consumers actually use the information they are given to make decisions. Consumers in a cognitive laboratory environment were presented with different types of information on health plan quality, in different formats, and asked about how they use the information in their decision-making process. The researchers also assessed how specific pieces of information were used and weighted in decisions. The objective of the study was to help determine how best to present information on health plan quality, so that it is valued and understood by consumers, and so that consumers can make the maximum use of information on quality when choosing a health plan.
1 Examples include reports on hospitals’ risk-adjusted mortality rates.
2 Examples include AHRQ’s National Healthcare Quality Report and NCQA’s HEDIS reports.
3 www.cms.hhs.gov/QualityInitiativesGenInfo
4 www.cms.hhs.gov/PQRI/33_2007_General_Info.asp
5 Terry K., “Physician Report Cards: Help, ho-hum or horror? Medical Economics, July 21, 2006, http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=359028; see also, “Reliability of Current Physician Report Cards Questioned,” Press Release, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, June 8, 1999 www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr1999/reptcard.htm
6 However, in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 2008 Update on Consumers' Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information, only 14 percent of respondents reported that they "saw" and "used" comparative health quality information for health insurance plans, hospitals, or doctors in the past year. This total was down from 20 percent in 2006 and 19 percent in 2004. www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/posr101508pkg.cfm; see also, Tu, T. and J. Lauer. “Word of Mouth and Physician Referrals Still Drive Health Care Provider Choice,” Research Brief, Center for Studying Health System Change, No. 9, December 2008 (noting that “For policy makers seeking to engage consumers in provider shopping and quality improvement efforts, a critical challenge is to educate consumers about the existence and the serious implications of provider quality gaps.”) www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1028/#ib5
7 Werner, R.M. and D.A. Asch. “The Unintended Consequences of Publicly Reporting Quality Information,” Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Vol. 293, No. 10, March 9, 2005, pp. 1239-44.
8 Casalino, L.P., et al. “General Internists’ Views on Pay-For-Performance and Public Reporting of Quality Scores: A National Survey,” Health Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 2, March/April 2007.
9 Ibid.
10 “Public Reporting of HAIs May Have Unintended Consequences” Infectious Disease Society of America. 2007, www.idsociety.org/PrintFriendly.aspx?id=8066; see also, Costello, P. “Rating doctors: Who benefits? As ‘report cards’ gain favor, some question how far physicians will go to score high,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2005 www.myhealthcareadvisor.com/news/0050613-latimes
11 Werner, R.M. et al. “Racial Profiling: The Unintended Consequences of Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Report Cards,” Circulation, Vol. 111, 2005; pp. 1257-63.
12 Ibid.
13 Werner, JAMA, 2005; Werner, Circulation, 2005
Grantee Spotlight: Ashish Jha, M.D., M.P.H.
Ashish Jha, M.D., M.P.H., is assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is also assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a staff physician at the Boston VA and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals. Dr. Jha’s research interests include quality of care—particularly in hospitals that serve large minority populations—health care disparities, and the use of health information technology (HIT) and its impact on health care quality, safety, and efficiency.
Dr. Jha received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and trained in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco where he also served as chief resident. He completed his general medicine fellowship training from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and received his M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health. He joined the faculty at Harvard in July 2004. In June 2008, Dr. Jha was the recipient of AcademyHealth’s Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award, which recognizes scholars early in their careers as health services researchers who show exceptional promise for future contributions.
Currently, Dr. Jha is the principal investigator on a HCFO grant investigating the impact of pay for performance (P4P) on hospitals that care for minorities and the poor. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have implemented P4P demonstrations, and are considering implementing P4P nationally. However, the impact of P4P has not been widely evaluated. Hospitals that care for underserved populations may have greater potential for quality improvement, but conversely these facilities lack the tools and resources to improve quality and compete for the additional resources. With this grant, Dr. Jha will examine the impact of financial incentives to improve quality on hospitals that care for poor or other underserved populations, by looking at changes in quality for hospitals in the Medicare Premier P4P Demonstration that serve disadvantaged populations. “It is our hope that this research will provide insights about the impact of P4P on hospitals that serve disadvantaged populations, and help policymakers to design incentive systems that encourage higher quality care for all without disproportionately harming hospitals that care for these populations,” says Dr. Jha. For more information about this study, please visit www.hcfo.net/grantees/grant.cfm?GrantNo=63743.
For more information on Dr. Jha and a list of select publications, please visit www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/ashish-jha/.
New HCFO Grant!
Institution: University of Minnesota
Title: The Characteristics of Best Medical Practices
Principal Investigator: John Kralewski, Ph.D.
Duration: 12/1/2008 – 9/30/2010
Paragraph Summary: The researchers will identify the organizational characteristics of medical group practices that achieve high quality, low cost care. Current research suggests that the cost and quality of care vary across geographic areas and health plans within geographic areas. The causes of this variation at the practice level, however, are not well understood. Using a sample of physician practices from Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) membership, the researchers will examine how financial incentives within the practice, structural, and cultural attributes at the practice-level influence costs and quality of care, and the linkages between cost and quality. They will examine the effects of practice size, physician workload, and collegiality on cost and quality independently and then examine the effects on cost and quality jointly. Finally, they will calculate the configuration that results in the optimal performance of best medical practices. The objective of this project is to provide benchmarks that policymakers and health insurance plan and medical practice administrators can use to promote a cost-effective health care system.
Spotlight on Grantee Publications
Michael A. Morrisey, Ph.D., professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues published the article, “Medical Malpractice Reform and Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums,” in the December 2008 issue of Health Services Research. The article highlights findings from a HCFO-sponsored study that examined the effect of recent malpractice reforms on health insurance costs.
Peter J. Neumann, Sc.D., director at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts Medical Center, and colleagues published the article, “Measuring the Value of Public Health Systems: The Disconnect Between Health Economists and Public Health Practitioners,” in the December 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The article highlights findings from a HCFO-sponsored grant—funded under a special topic solicitation in public health systems research (PHSR) and led by Peter Jacobson, J.D., professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health—that examined how to define and measure the value of governmental public health systems.
Steven D. Pizer, Ph.D., health economist at the Boston VA Research Institute, and colleagues published the September 27, 2008 article, "Nothing for Something? Estimating the Cost and Value for Beneficiaries from Recent Medicare Spending Increases on HMO Payments and Drug Benefits," in the online version of the International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics. This article highlights findings from HCFO-sponsored research that examines how Medicare private fee-for-service (PFFS) plans and beneficiary choices are affected by payment policy.
Grantees in the News
Ann O’Malley, senior health researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change, was quoted in the November 23, 2008 Chicago Tribune news blog, “A Crisis in Primary Care Accelerates.” The news blog discusses the current state of primary care and highlights findings from a Physicians Foundation survey. O’Malley states, “(Primary care physicians’) incomes are lower than surgeons and other specialists, and a lot of what (they) do is not compensated…The time they spend coordinating care on the phone, talking to social workers, and talking to specialists about care provided to the same patients just does not get compensated.” In a HCFO-sponsored study, O’Malley is documenting “best practices” that physician offices have developed to coordinate care and identifying challenges and lessons learned.
HCFO Releases a New Findings Brief
Hospitals are at the center of a positive national drive toward improved health care quality; however, they face growing demands to participate in clinical quality and performance measurement and reporting programs. Paul Ginsburg, Ph.D., president of the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), Debra Draper, Ph.D., associate director at HSC, and colleagues conducted a study which examined hospitals’ quality reporting activities, the strategies hospitals use to manage the demands associated with reporting activities, and the role of external stakeholders in streamlining quality reporting demands. The growing number of different quality reporting programs has both increased the burden for hospitals and posed challenges for the coordination of varying requirements. In response, hospitals have identified several approaches to cope with the growing demands. To learn more, download the full brief.
New Data for Researchers
Preliminary estimates of electronic medical record use by office-based physicians: 2008
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently released preliminary statistics describing the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) by office-based physicians. Data were obtained through a mail survey between April and August 2008 from a nationally representative sample of 2,000 physicians classified as providing direct patient care in office-based practices. This estimate will supplement information from the core 2008 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), an annual nationally-representative survey of patient visits to office-based physicians.
In the 2008 mail survey, approximately 38.4 percent of physicians reported using full or partial EMR systems, not including billings records, in their office-based practices. About 20.4 percent reported using a system described as minimally-functional and including the following features: orders for prescriptions, orders for tests, viewing laboratory or imaging results, and clinical notes.
EMR systems that conform to certain interoperability standards have been defined as electronic health records (EHRs). Electronic health records in turn have been characterized as basic (patient demographics, problem lists, clinical notes, orders for prescription, and viewing laboratory and imaging results) or fully functional (patient demographics, problem lists, clinical notes, medical history and follow-up, orders for prescriptions, orders for tests, prescription orders sent electronically, viewing laboratory and imaging results, warnings of drug interactions or contraindications, out-of-range test levels, and reminders for guideline-based interventions). In the 2008 mail survey, 17.0 percent of the physicians reported having systems that have been defined as basic, and 4.0 percent reported having systems defined as fully functional.
For more information about these estimates, see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/physicians08/physicians08.htm
For further information about the 2008 mail survey of office-based physicians, please contact Chun-Ju (Janey) Hsiao, Janey.Hsiao@cdc.hhs.gov, NCHS.
To access micro-data from this survey, researchers must apply to the NCHS Research Data Center (RDC). Visit the RDC website at www.cdc.gov/nchs/r&d/rdc.htm for more information.
Announcements
National Health Policy Conference Examines the Future of Health Reform
Don’t miss your first chance to hear directly from new and returning policymakers about plans for health care reform. Register today for the 2009 National Health Policy Conference (NHPC). No other conference offers a more comprehensive and detailed look at health care reform, straight from the Oval Office and Capitol Hill.
Plenary sessions will offer an overview of the presidential and congressional policy agendas as well as perspectives on different aspects of health reform. Confirmed sessions include:
* The Impact of Health Care Reform on Public Programs
* State Lessons for Health Care Reform
* The Impact of Health Care Reform on Employers
* Report from the Leaders’ Project: How to Fund Health Care Reform
Register by December 22 to save $150.
NCHS/AcademyHealth Health Policy Fellowship
Applications Due January 5, 2009
The
For more information on the fellowship and to download an application, visit the fellowship Web site.
Annual Research Meeting
2009 Call for Abstracts Now Open
The AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM) is the premier forum for health services research with presentation of cutting-edge health services research. The call for abstracts for the 2009 meeting is now open. Abstracts are invited for three categories: (1) call for papers, (2) call for posters, and (3) call for panels. The 2009 ARM features 21 themes. Details on the specific theme topics and instructions for submitting an abstract can be found in the Call for Abstracts Brochure.
Don't miss this opportunity to present your work to more than 2,000 health services researchers, providers, and key health care decision makers. Submit your abstract or panel proposal by January 15 to be considered for presentation at the ARM, June 28-30, 2009 in
AcademyHealth Interest Group Call for Abstracts
The following AcademyHealth Interest Groups are conducting calls for abstracts for their respective meetings in conjunction with the Annual Research Meeting:
Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues (IRGNI) Interest Group
Submission Deadline: February 16
www.academyhealth.org/interestgroups/nursing/callforpapers.cfm
Child Health Services Research Interest Group
Submission Deadline: February 16
www.academyhealth.org/childhealth/callforpanels.htm
Public Health Systems Research Interest Group
Submission Deadline: February 16
www.academyhealth.org/interestgroups/phsr/callforpapers.htm
State Health Research and Policy Interest Group
Submission Deadline: February 16
www.academyhealth.org/interestgroups/shrp/index.htm
Long-Term Care: Call for Commissioned Papers
Applications Accepted Beginning December 1
The Commonwealth Fund and AcademyHealth are holding a competition to prepare a paper comprising an overview and synthesis of an important issue in long-term care. It will form the basis for one of the substantive sessions at the June 2009 Colloquium, which also will include real world discussants and table discussions among colloquium participants.
The selected author will be awarded $5,000 (plus travel expenses) for the paper’s preparation and presentation at the Colloquium on June 27, 2009 in
For more details, visit the 2009 Colloquium Call for Commissioned Papers Web site.
Building Bridges 2009 Policy Seminar
February 4, 2009
8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Join key policymakers and researchers for The Commonwealth Fund's Building Bridges: Making a Difference in Long-Term Care 2009 Policy Seminar. Tamara Konetzka, Ph.D.,
Separate registration for the policy seminar is required (see "adjunct meetings" on the registration form). For more information, contact ltc@academyhealth.org or visit the Building Bridges Web site.