Health Information Technology

"Implementing Telemedicine Services for Low-Income Seniors: Potential Strategies." Trends in Health Information Technology, Issue Brief #2. Lorenzo Moreno and Arnold Chen, September 2005. Home-based telemedicine is emerging as a powerful tool that may improve access to health care for people who live in medically underserved or remote rural areas, or who have limited personal mobility. In particular, a growing number of health care organizations are using telemedicine to serve Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions, such as congestive heart failure, depression, and diabetes, who are separated geographically from health care providers. This four-page brief suggests key factors for policymakers and funders of telemedicine interventions to consider as they move forward in developing initiatives for groups with little education and limited experience with technology.

Read more about our work examining how technology applications are being harnessed to promote innovation and improvement in the U.S. health care system.

Donated Care for the Uninsured?

"Donated Care Programs: A Stopgap Measure or a Long-Run Alternative to Health Insurance?" Jeffrey Kullgren, Erin Fries Taylor, and Catherine McLaughlin. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, August 2005. In the absence of broad federal health care reform, interest has grown in local solutions to the problem of providing health care to the uninsured. Community-based donated medical care models have emerged as one alternative. The authors examine the early experience of a donated care program in southern Maine called CarePartners. Although such programs are often viewed as a short-term solution for those temporarily without health insurance, CarePartners served a different role for many individuals. While clearly a short-term stopgap measure for some, CarePartners appears to be a longer-term means for getting access to care for most enrollees.

Turning Knowledge Into Practice

“Analysis of Dissemination and Impact of the Integrated Delivery System Research Network.” Marsha Gold, Erin Fries Taylor, and Tara Krissik, December 2004. The Integrated Delivery System Research Network (IDSRN) is a major initiative of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality that seeks to further the agency’s goals of knowledge transfer and movement of research to practice. The IDSRN involves contracts with nine teams of insurer/delivery system-affiliated researchers organized in various ways to complete specific and diverse projects in priority topic areas. This report describes and analyzes the IDSRN with the aim of helping to understand how it works on the ground, what is has accomplished, and how it is viewed by its partners and collaborators. In addition, the authors build on the evaluation findings to make recommendations for future change.

Improving Quality of Care: Conference Examines Link to Reporting

“Hospital Public Reporting Summit: The Link Between Public Reporting and Quality Improvement. Summary of Conference Proceedings.” Mary A. Laschober and Myles Maxfield, May 2005. On May 25, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care, and Mathematica sponsored a one-day conference on the impact of hospitals’ publicly reported quality measures on hospitals themselves. Conference goals were to explore how hospitals achieve quality improvements, leverage public reporting, and coordinate multiple stakeholders in pursuit of the shared goal of quality improvement. This report summarizes key points made by the 13 speakers and addresses several themes that cut across the conference presentations.

Read more about our quality-of-care work.

Childhood Obesity Issues

“A Review of Household Behaviors for Preventing Obesity in Children.” Robert C. Whitaker, January 2004. With obesity on the rise in children as well as adults, finding ways to prevent childhood obesity has become a pressing concern for both health care providers and parents. Yet, determining the best prevention method is difficult because the problem does not have a single cause and there are few scientific studies examining the impacts of specific interventions. This report reviews 17 behaviors proposed for maintaining healthy weight in children that could possibly be altered in the home setting. The behaviors were ranked on the basis of evidence that, if practiced, they (1) could prevent obesity, (2) would be unlikely to cause harm, and (3) might improve aspects of child well-being aside from maintaining a healthy body weight. Under these criteria, the behaviors that could most strongly be recommended for children were reducing “screen time” (time spent watching TV or videotapes, using the computer, or playing video games); playing outside more often; and consuming appropriate portion sizes, especially when drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and eating away from home.