$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

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Study: Hospital costs vary greatly by location

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:59:54 -0400

New data from Dartmouth Medical School highlights a problem that is likely to become more widely discussed as health reform schemes--and related calls for pricing controls--continue to move forward. Researchers compiling information for the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare, which comes out every two years, examined records of 4.7 million patients who died during 2001 to 2005. What they found was the kind of disparities in costs that continue to frustrate policy-makers and employers. For example, they found that for chronically ill patients in their last two years of life, Medicare spends an average of $59,379 in New Jersey, but only $32,523 in North Dakota, largely due to New Jersey patients getting more hospital care. (The national average for such spending was $46,412.) Unfortunately, more hospital care didn't equate to better outcomes; such patients were seen by more specialists, and spent more time in the ICU, but didn't live longer on average.

To learn more about the study:
- read this Associated Press article

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