Medical DevicesA Selection Of Recent Studies And Surveys
UCLA Health Policy Research Brief: Health Coverage in the Safety Net: How California"s Coverage Initiative Is Providing A Medical Home to Low-Income Uninsured Adults in Ten Counties, Interim Findings -- As medical homes continue to gain attention for being used as "a potential remedy to access system-wide problems of high health care costs and limited access," a team of UCLA researchers "present interim findings on the efforts of ten California counties to explore the medical home model as part of the state"s Health Care Coverage Initiative (HCCI), a three-year program to expand health care coverage for eligible low-income, uninsured individuals not otherwise covered by Medi-Cal" in a policy brief. "Among the innovations described are efforts to create electronic health and medical records, modify e-referrals to two-way communication between primary care physicians and other providers and standardize chronic disease registries" (6/09).
Health Affairs: Families With Mixed Eligibility For Public Coverage: Navigating Medicaid, CHIP, And Uninsurance -- Children in families where they differ from siblings in their eligibility for public insurance programs are more likely to go uninsured, according to a study published online Tuesday in the journal, Health Affairs. The paper, authored by Julie Hudson, a senior economist in the Center for Financing Access and Cost Trends at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality paper is the first to document the phenomenon of mixed eligibility. "In light of CHIPRA initiatives to improve take-up among eligible children and health reform efforts to increase overall coverage, these results suggest that states may benefit by focusing efforts on the mixed-eligibility population" (Hudson, 6/23).
National Committee For Quality Assurance: Supporting Small Practices: Lessons For Health Reform -- Though "small medical practices" - those with five or fewer physicians - "play an important role in the care of patients with diverse needs" they face "significant barriers to providing the highest quality health care," according to a report released Wednesday. With funding from the California Endowment, NCQA worked with 19 small practices in an effort to identify "what was needed to support practices with the least experience with quality improvement and electronic health records, like most small practices in the United States today." "The report highlights the importance of providing adequate help in adapting to the new demands for quality and accountability under current health care reform proposals" (6/24).
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