Commonwealth Fund news from FierceHealthcare

Nursing homes that change their culture to make care more resident-directed, foster staff autonomy and make the facility function more like a home than hospital do better on several measures of Read more...

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 Read more...

In a new report, the Institute of Medicine is recommending that Congress establish a national program to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of products and services, in an effort to give providers a Read more...

Group gets grant to study patient-centered careLooks like interest is building in patient-centered care. The American College of Physicians has gotten a grant of nearly $225,000 from the Commonwealth Read more...

A new report suggests that if the U.S. created a program designed to provide the right incentives and improve decision making, payers could save $368 billion on health costs over the next 10 years. Read more...

Despite our high levels of medical spending, many Americans are still unsatisfied with their medical care, a new study suggests. Worse, U.S. patients have the highest out-of-pocket costs among seven Read more...

African-Americans in the U.S. often get lower-quality nursing home care than whites, according to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs. The wide-ranging study, which was funded by the Read more...

About 30 percent of the nation's estimated 44.4 million people without health insurance are 19-29 years old, making young adults the largest group of newly uninsured, according to a Commonwealth Fund Read more...

While the problem of racial disparity in healthcare treatment is still huge (see story #5, below), it's interesting to note there's been several pieces of news lately that hint at some solutions. Read more...

A growing body of research suggests patients who have a "medical home" tend to do better overall. Such homes also reduce racial disparities in treatment, according to a new study.

The Commonwealth Fund study found that even when patients lacked health insurance, disparities in care between Caucasians and minorities seem to disappear. The Fund screened for patients having medical homes by asking if they had a regular provider or place of care, whether …

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