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$300M grant from RWJF intended to reduce health disparities

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Today the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is expected to announce a $300 million initiative designed to reduce significant regional and ethnic care disparities across the U.S.--and ultimately, if successful, provide a model for healthcare reform. The study, which will be conducted by researchers at Dartmouth Medical School, will target 14 communities and regions across the country. One major goal of the project is to cut down on hospital admissions for certain conditions. For example, right now, states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi have high hospitalization rates for problems like poorly-controlled diabetes or worsening heart failure, exceeding 100 discharges per 1,000 beneficiaries. Also, blacks often get worse care than whites; in Memphis, black Medicare beneficiaries are almost six times as likely as whites to have a leg amputated due to vascular disease and diabetes.

To learn more about the initiative:
- read this Seattle Times piece

PLUS: Racial care disparities are widespread among patients with kidney disease, according to a new study. Article

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Feds to display hospital satisfaction ratings in newspaper ads

Wed, 21 May 2008 06:59:56 -0400

In an effort to put some money behind its philosophy, the federal government has budgeted about $1.9 million to put full-page ads in newspapers around the U.S. disclosing individual hospital satisfaction rates. The newspaper ads, which are running in 58 newspapers in 49 states, draw their data from CMS's Hospital Compare website (http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov). The patient satisfaction data used in the campaign was released voluntarily by the hospitals in question.

The ads will show responses to two questions: the percentage of patients who always received help when they needed it, and the percentage who received antibiotics one hour before surgery. The second question relates to a measure commonly held to be important in fighting hospital-acquired infections. In addition to listing specific hospital numbers, the ads will list statewide averages for the given survey question.

To learn more about this campaign:
- read this Associated Press article

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Study: Med schools could dramatically boost rural MD supply

Tue, 20 May 2008 06:59:54 -0400

Right now, only 9 percent of doctors live in rural areas, while 20 percent of the U.S. population is based there, according to current research. But medical schools could help close this gap. In fact, if each medical school added a rural training program, they would more than double the number of new graduates going into rural practice, according to a study in the journal Academic Medicine. The study estimated that if each of the 125 allopathic medical schools committed 10 seats per class to a rural training program--producing 1,139 new rural doctors a year--that would far exceed the current flow of graduating students to rural areas. This would help ease the burden of care in rural areas, which are not only underserved by volume, but also include many older, sicker residents, researchers said.

To learn more about the study:
- read this AMNews piece

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Study: Care at safety net hospitals lagging

Wed, 14 May 2008 06:59:55 -0400

Care at safety net hospitals is of significantly lower quality than hospitals that don't serve the poor and underserved, according to a new study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, which looked at data collected between 2004 and 2006 from 3,665 safety-net and non-safety-net hospitals, concluded that hospitals serving a low percentage of Medicaid patients had far more improvement in quality over time than safety-net facilities.

For example, while safety-net hospitals improved heart attack care by 2.3 percentage points, hospitals treating a low volume of Medicaid patients improved heart attack care by 3.8 percentage points, researchers said. Generally speaking, hospitals with a high volume of Medicaid patients saw CMS quality ratings drop from 10.1 percent in 2004 to 2.8 percent in 2006, while non-safety-net hospital ratings climbed from 13.6 percent to 19.7 percent.

To address this gap, the government should offer safety-net hospitals funding specifically targeted to improving care quality, rather than focusing solely on what levels they've already achieved, researchers said.

To learn more about the study:
- read this HealthDay News piece

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Bill would ease visa shortage for foreign nurses

Mon, 05 May 2008 06:59:57 -0400

For some time, a visa shortage has limited the ability of provider organizations to hire foreign healthcare professionals. Now, however, a new federal bill proposes to provide visas for qualified registered nurses to work in the U.S. The Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act would not only help address visa shortages, it also would provide a mechanism to fund measures to attract and retain nursing faculty, buy educational equipment and attract American students to nursing careers. The bill hopes to address the mushrooming shortage of nurses in the U.S., which is only projected to get worse over time. The American Hospital Association, for example, was reporting that hospitals needed more than 116,000 RNs to fill their current professional openings, far more than available in today's healthcare marketplace.

To learn more about the bill:
- read this Healthcare Finance News article

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CMS wants to cut skilled-nursing spending

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:59:56 -0400

CMS says it is proposing to cut about $770 million in overall payments to skilled-nursing facilities in fiscal 2009, though it also plans to help the industry with an inflationary update to absorb some of the difference. The change is one of several planned by the agency to address what it sees as industry upcoding.

All told, CMS wants to cut 3.3 percent in overall payments, but the update will amount to about 3.1 percent. The remaining gap is about $60 million net loss between this year and next. Under the new payment rule, CMS would change case-mix weighting to better align its reimbursement structure with the "right" procedures. It may also toss pay-for-performance initiatives and other quality incentives into the mix.

To learn more about the CMS proposal:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece (reg. req.)

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Bill would foster growth of nurse educator corps

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:59:54 -0400

A federal legislator has a filed a bill designed to encourage active-duty military nurses and those retiring from military service to become nurse educators. The legislation, modeled after a Defense Department program helping military personnel move into education, offers varied fellowships and scholarships to nurses interested in faculty positions. Retired nurses would get financial incentives for serving as full-time faculty at an accredited school of nursing. The bill hopes to address the drastic shortage of nurse educators that prevails today. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away almost 43,000 qualified applicants in 2006.

To learn more about the bill:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece (reg. req.)

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Study: MDs who treat minorities face quality challenges

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:59:55 -0400

Doctors who treat minorities tend to face a unique set of quality and financial challenges, according to a new study appearing in Health Affairs. The researchers, who used data from the 2004-05 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey, concluded that 26 percent of physicians in high-minority practices disagreed that it was possible to provide high-quality care to all patients, while only 16 percent of low-minority practices agreed with this statement. What's more, high-minority practices were more likely to report that having too little time during office visits impacted their ability to provide high-quality care. This study was supported by The Commonwealth Fund.

To learn more about this study:
- read this Modern Physician article

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Study: Ethnic bias not seen in care for same condition

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:59:54 -0400

As we've detailed here in the past, disparities in care between whites and ethnic minorities continue to exist throughout the U.S. However, there's at least one area where whites and minorities seem to fare equally in quality of care--though oddly enough, outcomes seem to be worse--according to a new study appearing in the March/April edition of the journal Health Affairs. It appears that when they're being treated in a hospital for the same condition, or getting the same procedure, care for whites and minorities is about equal.

The study drew on state patient discharge data from 13 states from 2000 to 2003, plus data from Pennsylvania and Texas public health authorities and the AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization project. When researchers crunched the numbers, they found that there were indeed racial disparities in the overall rates of mortality and adverse events for patients, but no major differences in the quality of care between whites and minorities.

To get more data from the study:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece (reg. req.)

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SPOTLIGHT: Public health workforce dropping

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:59:52 -0500

According to a new report by the Association of Schools of Public Health, the number of public health workers could fall rapidly in coming years. For one thing, they estimate that 23 percent of the workforce will retire by 2012. To address this gap, the trade group would like to see increased student financial aid funding, loan repayment/forgiveness and stronger recruiting efforts among professionals in the private sector. Article