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Objectives: Depressive symptoms are often undetected, particularly among older adults. The purpose of this study is to provide information on the prevalence, characteristics, and patterns of depressive symptoms among older adults residing in the community in Israel, and their health-care utilization., Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among a random sample of 2502 members of one HMO in Israel, aged 65+. They were interviewed by telephone with the GDS-15 scale, which serves as the gold standard for depressive symptoms. Data from the computerized medical records of the HMO were added to the interview file, including the diagnosis of depression, purchase of antidepressant medication and use of services., Results: The average age of respondents was 73; 54% were women. They tended to be older, living alone, suffering from falls and from sleep disorders, and to have poor subjective health status. 24% scored 6+ on the GDS scale. A significant association was found between a GDS score of 6+ and increased hospitalizations, visits to the emergency room and/or to family physicians and specialists., Conclusion: We found a high prevalence of depression. Its negative effects on the individual and increased costs to the health system, supports the screening and treatment of the disease in the older population. This problem should be a national priority, with screening and treatment becoming part of the national quality of care indicators which would then be implemented by the HMOs as part of an integrated disease management program for the elderly.

Background: Nearly half of Americans with diagnosed hypertension have uncontrolled blood pressure (BP) while some integrated healthcare systems, such as Kaiser Permanente Northern California, have achieved control rates upwards 90%., Methods and Results: We adapted Kaiser Permanente's evidence-based treatment protocols in a racially and ethnically diverse population at 12 safety-net clinics in the San Francisco Health Network. The intervention consisted of 4 elements: a hypertension registry, a simplified treatment intensification protocol that included fixed-dose combination medications containing diuretics, standardized BP measurement protocol, and BP check visits led by registered nurse and pharmacist staff. The study population comprised patients with hypertension who made ≥1 primary care visits within the past 24 months (n=15 917) and had a recorded BP measurement within the past 12 months. We conducted a postintervention time series analysis from August 2014 to August 2016 to assess the effect of the intervention on BP control for 24 months for the pilot site and for 15 months for 11 other San Francisco Health Network clinics combined. Secondary outcomes were changes in use of guideline-recommended medication prescribing. Rates of BP control increased at the pilot site (68%-74%; P <0.01) and the 11 other San Francisco Health Network clinic sites (69%-74%; P <0.01). Statistically significant improvements in BP control rates ( P <0.01) at the 11 San Francisco Health Network clinic sites occurred in all racial and ethnic groups (blacks, 60%-66%; whites, 69%-75%; Latinos, 67%-72%; Asians, 78%-82%). Use of fixed-dose combination medications increased from 10% to 13% ( P <0.01), and the percentage of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor prescriptions dispensed in combination with a thiazide diuretic increased from 36% to 40% ( P <0.01)., Conclusions: Evidence-based system approaches to improving BP control can be implemented in safety-net settings and could play a pivotal role in achieving improved population BP control and reducing hypertension disparities., (© 2018 American Heart Association, Inc.)

The 40-year-old vice president of regional markets for eastern Massachusetts wants enrollees and, especially, employers to know that there will continue to be a lot of public policy change as the ACA evolves. His course? Keep strengthening ties with providers.

The left ventricular ejection fraction value is an important prognostic indicator of cardiovascular outcomes including morbidity and mortality and is often used clinically to indicate severity of heart disease. However, it is usually reported in free-text echocardiography reports. We developed and validated a computerized algorithm to extract ejection fraction values from echocardiography reports and applied the algorithm to a large volume of unstructured echocardiography reports between 1995 and 2011 in a large health maintenance organization. A total of 621,856 echocardiography reports with a description of ejection fraction values or systolic functions were identified, of which 70 percent contained numeric ejection fraction values and the rest (30%) were text descriptions explicitly indicating the systolic left ventricular function. The 12.1 percent (16.0% for male and 8.4% for female) of these extracted ejection fraction values are <45 percent. Validation conducted based on a random sample of 200 reports yielded 95.0 percent sensitivity and 96.9 percent positive predictive value.

Many methods used to improve hospital and perioperative services productivity and quality of care have assumed that the hospital is essentially a factory, and therefore, that industrial engineering and manufacturing-derived redesign approaches such as Six Sigma and Lean can be applied to hospitals and perioperative services just as they have been applied in factories. However, a hospital is not merely a factory but also a complex adaptive system (CAS). The hospital CAS has many subsystems, with perioperative care being an important one for which concepts of factory redesign are frequently advocated. In this article, we argue that applying only factory approaches such as lean methodologies or process standardization to complex systems such as perioperative care could account for difficulties and/or failures in improving performance in care delivery. Within perioperative services, only noncomplex/low-variance surgical episodes are amenable to manufacturing-based redesign. On the other hand, complex surgery/high-variance cases and preoperative segmentation (the process of distinguishing between normal and complex cases) can be viewed as CAS-like. These systems tend to self-organize, often resist or react unpredictably to attempts at control, and therefore require application of CAS principles to modify system behavior. We describe 2 examples of perioperative redesign to illustrate the concepts outlined above. These examples present complementary and contrasting cases from 2 leading delivery systems. The Mayo Clinic example illustrates the application of manufacturing-based redesign principles to a factory-like (high-volume, low-risk, and mature practice) clinical program, while the Kaiser Permanente example illustrates the application of both manufacturing-based and self-organization-based approaches to programs and processes that are not factory-like but CAS-like. In this article, we describe how factory-like processes and CAS can coexist within a hospital and how self-organization-based approaches can be used to improve care delivery in many situations where manufacturing-based approaches may not be appropriate.

Background: Can the entry of a policy entrepreneur challenge the equilibrium of a policy network and promote changes that might clash with the goals of powerful civil-servants and/or interest groups and, if so, why and how? Our goal is to examine two sides of the same coin: how does an in-depth analysis of Israel's dental care reform enrich our understanding of policy networks and policy entrepreneurship? Second, how does the literature on policy networks and policy entrepreneurship help us understand this reform? Based on a theoretical framework that appears in the literature of policy entrepreneurship and policy networks, we analyze the motivations, goals and strategies of the main actors involved in the process of reforming pediatric dental care in Israel. We demonstrate how a policy entrepreneur navigated within a policy network and managed to promote a reform that, until his appearance, no one else in that network had succeeded in enacting., Methods: Our goals are advanced through a case study of a reform in pediatric dentistry implemented in Israel in 2010. It rests on textual analyses of the literature, reports, committee minutes, parliamentary proceedings, print and online media, and updates in relevant legislation and case law between 2009 and 2015. In addition, the case study draws on the insights of one of the authors (TH), who played a role in the reform process., Results: Historical circumstances and the Israeli public's longstanding lack of interest in changing the existing model as well as interest groups that preferred the dominance of the private sector in the dental healthcare system kept that area out of the services supplied, universally, under the National Health Insurance Law. This situation changed significantly following the publication in 2007 of a policy analysis that contributed to shifts in the motivations and balance of power within the policy network, which in turn prepared the ground for a policy change. In this environment a determined policy entrepreneur, who identified a window of opportunity, took the lead and instituted an innovative and far-reaching reform., Conclusions: A policy entrepreneur can leverage external factors as well as the previous activities of a policy network that has already matured to create a policy change. Such entrepreneurial activity includes maneuvering around opponents and overcoming resistance from various stakeholders.

Kaiser Permanente, an integrated health care delivery system in the USA, takes a "whole systems" approach to the chronic disease of obesity that begins with efforts to prevent it by modifying the environment in communities and schools. Aggressive case-finding and substantial investment in intensive lifestyle modification programs target individuals at high risk of diabetes and other weight-related conditions. Kaiser Permanente regions are increasingly standardizing their approach when patients with obesity require treatment intensification using medically supervised diets, prescription medication to treat obesity, or weight loss surgery.

Unlabelled: The objective of this study was to empirically demonstrate the use of a new framework for describing the strategies used to implement quality improvement interventions and provide an example that others may follow. Implementation strategies are the specific approaches, methods, structures, and resources used to introduce and encourage uptake of a given intervention's components. Such strategies have not been regularly reported in descriptions of interventions' effectiveness, or in assessments of how proven interventions are implemented in new settings. This lack of reporting may hinder efforts to successfully translate effective interventions into "real-world" practice. A recently published framework was designed to standardize reporting on implementation strategies in the implementation science literature. We applied this framework to describe the strategies used to implement a single intervention in its original commercial care setting, and when implemented in community health centers from September 2010 through May 2015. Per this framework, the target (clinic staff) and outcome (prescribing rates) remained the same across settings; the actor, action, temporality, and dose were adapted to fit local context. The framework proved helpful in articulating which of the implementation strategies were kept constant and which were tailored to fit diverse settings, and simplified our reporting of their effects. Researchers should consider consistently reporting this information, which could be crucial to the success or failure of implementing proven interventions effectively across diverse care settings., Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02299791., (Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Despite rapid advancements in telehealth services, only 15% of family physicians in a 2014 survey reported using telehealth; use varied widely according to the physician's practice setting or designation. Users were significantly more likely than nonusers to work in federally designated "safety net" clinics and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) but not more likely than nonusers to report working in a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) or accountable care organization., (© Copyright 2016 by the American Board of Family Medicine.)

Background: Widespread restructuring of health delivery systems is underway in the United States to reduce costs and improve the quality of health care., Objective: To describe studies evaluating the impact of system-level interventions (incentives and delivery structures) on the value of US health care, defined as the balance between quality and cost., Research Design: We identified articles in PubMed (2003 to July 2014) using keywords identified through an iterative process, with reference and author tracking. We searched tables of contents of relevant journals from August 2014 through 11 August 2015 to update our sample., Subjects: We included prospective or retrospective studies of system-level changes, with a control, reporting both quality and either cost or utilization of resources., Measures: Data about study design, study quality, and outcomes was extracted by one reviewer and checked by a second., Results: Thirty reports of 28 interventions were included. Interventions included patient-centered medical home implementations (n=12), pay-for-performance programs (n=10), and mixed interventions (n=6); no other intervention types were identified. Most reports (n=19) described both cost and utilization outcomes. Quality, cost, and utilization outcomes varied widely; many improvements were small and process outcomes predominated. Improved value (improved quality with stable or lower cost/utilization or stable quality with lower cost/utilization) was seen in 23 reports; 1 showed decreased value, and 6 showed unchanged, unclear, or mixed results.Study limitations included variability among specific endpoints reported, inconsistent methodologies, and lack of full adjustment in some observational trials. Lack of standardized MeSH terms was also a challenge in the search., Conclusions: On balance, the literature suggests that health system reforms can improve value. However, this finding is tempered by the varying outcomes evaluated across studies with little documented improvement in outcome quality measures. Standardized measures of value would facilitate assessment of the impact of interventions across studies and better estimates of the broad impact of system change.

In the era of the accountable care organization, U.S. models of physician practice are shifting from the solo, independent practitioner to the physician who is part of a multispecialty group practice or is employed by a health care institution, and from paper-based small offices to practice settings that emphasize technology-enabled, team-based systems of care. In this light, Kaiser Permanente's (KP's) long experience as an integrated, population-based health care delivery system makes it an increasingly relevant model in which to consider how graduate medical education (GME) can best prepare physicians for 21st-century health care. KP's multiple perspectives-as a GME setting, a health care delivery system, a health research enterprise, a community benefit organization, and the nation's largest private, multispecialty group practice of physicians-provide a multifaceted opportunity to consider GME in the context of health care transformation. The authors suggest that all participants in medical education have a role to play in preparing physicians for this future. They recommend that partnerships between universities and health care delivery systems serve as a highly effective model for education; that to better serve the needs of society, medical education institutions must adopt a broad community benefit mindset; and that, when medical groups and other institutions that employ physicians take the baton from GME, they need to commit to ongoing development and lifelong learning to enable their new physicians to reach their full potential.

One third of all practicing physicians are currently working in one of the 400 German health care networks. These physicians' networks bring together GPs and specialists and cooperate with different partners, for example, nursing homes, hospitals, and self-help groups. To increase the quality and the efficiency of care and patient satisfaction by improving the collaboration and communication between physicians and other health care providers.The example of the accountable care organization "Gesundheitsnetz Qualität und Effizienz" (QuE; Health Quality and Efficiency Network) in Nuremberg is used to show that it is possible to achieve an increase in efficiency while providing above-average quality of care and achieving high patient satisfaction. Additionally, the article deals with the status quo, the core objectives, and the key activities of previous generations of health care networks. Quality indicators, satisfaction surveys, and economic parameters are the basis for measuring and representing the above-average performance of physicians' networks. Regional health care networks offer an entire range of patient care, from outpatients and inpatients to the complementary sector, and thereby have excellent prospects for playing an even more important role in the German health care system. The key success factors are: the consideration of specific regional characteristics, their proximity to the patient, and consistent patient orientation.

Background: In the face of demographic changes, the aging of the population, and the increase in chronic morbidity and complexity, efficient primary care is needed to ensure comprehensive and high-quality health care. The general practitioner (GP) can only cope with this task, if certain preconditions are met., Objectives: To strengthen primary health care, the German legislator added § 73b, "GP-centered health care" ("Hausarztzentrierte Versorgung", HzV) to the Social Code Book V. This article seeks to illustrate the rationale and general set-up of the HzV and to report on its dissemination. We discuss whether or not the HzV can promote the preconditions required., Materials and Methods: Literature search, querying participants., Results: Several elements of the HzV, such as lump-sum reimbursement, obligatory participation in structured quality circles, continuing education, and the qualification of non-medical health care assistants help to promote an environment that enables GPs to fulfill their new role. Considering all assured people and the Federal Republic as a whole, the distribution of the HzV is poor. However, a growing number of contracts (currently: 79) and participants (currently > 3.6 million) is expected., Conclusions: The establishment of efficient primary care is heavily promoted by the HzV. In future, ways must be found to overcome the inflexible borders between sectors and to integrate community-based health care, which truly focuses on the patients needs. The HzV can be seen as a starting point.

Background: The integrated care system Gesundes Kinzigtal (ICSGK), one of the most comprehensive population-based ICS in Germany, started its work nearly 9 years ago. The ICSGK is pursuing the Triple Aim: improving the health of the population, improving the individual's experience of care, and at the same time reducing the per capita costs of care., Objectives: To evaluate the impact of the ICSGK on the Triple Aim., Materials and Methods: The ICSGK is being evaluated externally and internally via a mix of diverse quantitative and qualitative methods. This paper presents selected results for each Triple Aim dimension., Results and Conclusions: Regarding population health, most of the quality indicators examined by the external scientific evaluation show positive development. For example, the prevalence of patients with fractures among all insurants with osteoporosis is presented. In 2011, this prevalence was approximately 26 % in the "Kinzigtal" population (aged ≥ 20 years old) in comparison to 33 % in the control group. As far as patient experience is concerned, to the question "Would you recommend becoming a member of Gesundes Kinzigtal to your friends or relatives?" 92.1 % of those questioned answered "Yes, for sure" or "Yes, probably." Twenty-four percent of those questioned further stated that they would now live "more healthy" than before enrolment in the ICSGK. In the subgroup of questioned insurants who had objective agreements with their doctors 45.4 % answered in this way. On the subject of cost-effectiveness, for both participating socil health insurance schemes, cost savings relative to the costs normally expected for the ICSGK population concerned are observed every year. In the seventh intervention year (2012) the total is 4.56 million Euros for the AOK Baden-Württemberg (BW), which is a contribution margin of 146 Euros per insurant for the 31.156 insurants concerned (LKK BW = 322 Euros per insurant relative to cost savings). The results presented in this paper indicate positive effects in all three Triple Aim dimensions. Further longitudinal studies are recommended to validate those first results together with a detailed analysis to obtain in-depth insights into the specific influence of subcomponents of the total intervention.

The traditional separation of health care into sectors in Germany causes communication problems that hinder continuous, patient-oriented care. This is most evident in the transition from inpatient to outpatient care. That said, there are also breaks in the flow of information, a lack of supply, or even incorrect information flowing within same-sector care. The transition from a division of functions into sectors to a patient-oriented process represents a change in the paradigm of health care that can only be successfully completed with considerable effort. Germany's statutory health insurance (SHI) funds play a key role here, as they are the contracting parties as well as the financiers of integrated care, and are strategically located at the center of the development process.The objective of this article is to explore how Germany's SHI funds view integrated care, what they regard as being the drivers of and barriers to transitioning to such a system, and what recommendations they can provide with regard to the further development of integrated care. For this purpose semi-structured interviews with board members and those responsible for implementing integrated care into the operations of ten SHI funds representing more than half of Germany's SHI-insured population were conducted. According to the interviewees, a better framework for integrated care urgently needs to be developed and rendered more receptive to innovation.Only in this way will the widespread stagnation of the past several years be overcome. The deregulation of § 140a-d SGB V and the establishment of a uniform basis for new forms of care in terms of a new innovation clause are among the central recommendations of this article. The German federal government's innovation fund was met with great hope, but also implied risks. Nonetheless, the new law designed to strengthen health care overall generated high expectations.

In rural areas with a low population density and (imminent) gaps in regional health care, telemedicine concepts can be a promising option in supporting the supply of medical care.Telemedicine connections can be established between different health care providers (e.g., hospitals) or directly between health care providers and patients.Different scenarios for the implementation of telemedicine have been developed, from the monitoring of chronically ill patients to the support of acute care. Examples of frequently applied telemedicine concepts are teleradiology, telemedicine stroke networks, and the telemedicine monitoring of patients with heart failure. The development of concepts for other indications and patient groups is apparently difficult in Germany; one reason could be that research institutions are involved in only a small number of projects. However, the participation of research institutes would be of importance in creating more scientific evidence. The development of appropriate evaluation designs for analyzing the effectiveness of telemedicine concepts and economic effects is an important task and challenge for the future. Mandatory evaluation criteria should be developed to provide a basis for the translation of positively evaluated telemedicine concepts into routine care.

The structures and processes of stroke care provision in the acute and chronic phases, during rehabilitation and societal integration, the needs of patients, and the means of meeting those needs are described and analyzed. Deficits mainly involve local multidisciplinary professional aid, focusing on participation under the supervision of a neurologist experienced in rehabilitation. Deficits are mainly caused by a lack of funding from statutory and private health insurance.

Background: We studied the relationship between physician organization (PO) care management capabilities and inpatient utilization in order to identify PO characteristics or capabilities associated with low inpatient bed-days per thousand., Methods: We used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to conduct an exploratory comparative case series study. Data about PO capabilities were collected using structured interviews with medical directors at fourteen California POs that are delegated to provide inpatient utilization management (UM) for HMO members of a California health plan. Health plan acute hospital claims from 2011 were extracted from a reporting data warehouse and used to calculate inpatient utilization statistics. Supplementary analyses were conducted using Fisher's Exact Test and Student's T-test., Results: POs with low inpatient bed-days per thousand minimized length of stay and surgical admissions by actively engaging in concurrent review, discharge planning, and surgical prior authorization, and by contracting directly with hospitalists to provide UM-related services. Disease and case management were associated with lower medical admissions and readmissions, respectively, but not lower bed-days per thousand., Conclusions: Care management methods focused on managing length of stay and elective surgical admissions are associated with low bed-days per thousand in high-risk California POs delegated for inpatient UM. Reducing medical admissions alone is insufficient to achieve low bed-days per thousand. California POs with high bed-days per thousand are not applying care management best practices.

Some developing countries have incorporated managed care elements into their national health insurance schemes. In practice, hybrid health management organizations (Hmos) are insurers who, bearing some resemblance to managed care in the USA, are vertically integrated in the scheme's revenue collection and pool and purchase healthcare services within a competitive framework. To date, few studies have focused on these organizations and their level of satisfaction with the scheme's optimal-resource-use (ORU) implementation. In Nigeria, the study site, Hmos were categorized on the basis of their satisfaction with ORU activities. One hundred forty-seven Hmo staff were randomly interviewed. The types of ORU domain categories were provider payment mechanism, administrative efficiency, benefit package inclusions and active monitoring mechanism. Bivariate analysis was used to determine differences among the Hmos' satisfaction with the various ORU domains. The Hmos' satisfaction with the health insurance scheme's ORU activities was 59.2% generally, and the associated factors were identified. According to the Hmos' perspectives related to the type of ORU, the fee-for-service payment method and regular inspection performed weakly. Hmos' limited satisfaction with the scheme's ORU raises concerns regarding ineffectiveness that may hinder implementation. To offset high risks in the scheme, it appears necessary for the regulatory agency to adapt and reform strategies of provider payment and active monitoring mechanisms according to stakeholder needs. Our findings further reveal that having Hmos evaluate ORU is useful for providing evidence-based information for policy making and regulatory utilization related to implementation of the health insurance scheme., (Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Secure e-mailing between Kaiser Permanente physicians and patients is widespread; primary care providers receive an average of 5 e-mails from patients each workday. However, on average, secure e-mailing with patients has not substantially impacted primary care provider workloads. Secure e-mail has been associated with increased member retention and improved quality of care. Separate studies associated patient portal and secure e-mail use with both decreased and increased use of other health care services, such as office visits, telephone encounters, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations. Directions for future research include more granular analysis of associations between patient-physician secure e-mail and health care utilization.

This study aims at replicating and extending Xiao and Savage's (2008) research to understand the multidimensional aspect of HMOs distinguished by HMOs' consumer-friendliness, and their relationship to consumers' preventive care utilization. This study develops a dynamic model to consider both concurrent and time lagging effects of HMOs' consumer-friendliness. Our data analysis discloses similar relationship patterns as revealed by Xiao and Savage. Additionally, our findings reveal the time-series changes of the influence of HMOs' consumer-friendliness that either the effects of early experienced HMOs' consumer-friendliness wear out totally or HMOs' consumer-friendly characteristics on the concurrent term contain most of the explanatory power.

Background: Relative to traditional fee-for-service Medicare, managed care plans caring for Medicare beneficiaries may be better positioned to promote recommended services and discourage burdensome procedures with little clinical value at the end of life., Objective: To compare end-of-life service use for enrollees in Medicare Advantage health maintenance organizations (MA-HMO) relative to similar individuals enrolled in traditional Medicare (TM)., Research Design, Subjects, Measures: For a national cohort of Medicare decedents continuously enrolled in MA-HMOs or TM in their year of death, 2003-2009, we obtained hospice enrollment information and individual-level Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set utilization measures for MA-HMO decedents for up to 1 year before death. We developed comparable claims-based measures for TM decedents matched on age, sex, race, and location., Results: Hospice use in the year preceding death was higher among MA than TM decedents in 2003 (38% vs. 29%), but the gap narrowed over the study period (46% vs. 40% in 2009). Relative to TM, MA decedents had significantly lower rates of inpatient admissions (5%-14% lower), inpatient days (18%-29% lower), and emergency department visits (42%-54% lower). MA decedents initially had lower rates of ambulatory surgery and procedures that converged with TM rates by 2009 and had modestly lower rates of physician visits initially that surpassed TM rates by 2007., Conclusions: Relative to comparable TM decedents in the same local areas, MA-HMO decedents more frequently enrolled in hospice and used fewer inpatient and emergency department services, demonstrating that MA plans provide less end-of-life care in hospital settings.

In 2014, the Affordable Care Act will create an estimated 16 million newly insured people. Coupled with an estimated shortage of over 60,000 primary care physicians, the country's public health care system will be at a challenging crossroads, as there will be more patients waiting to see fewer doctors. Nurse practitioners (NPs) can help to ease this crisis. NPs are health care professionals with the capability to provide important and critical access to primary care, particularly for vulnerable populations. However, despite convincing data about the quality of care provided by NPs, many managed care organizations (MCOs) across the country do not credential NPs as primary care providers, limiting the ability of NPs to be reimbursed by private insurers. To assess current credentialing practices of health plans across the United States, a brief telephone survey was administered to 258 of the largest health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the United States, operated by 98 different MCOs. Results indicated that 74% of these HMOs currently credential NPs as primary care providers. Although this represents progress over prior assessments, findings suggest that just over one fourth of major HMOs still do not recognize NPs as primary care providers. Given the documented shortage of primary care physicians in low-income communities in the United States, these credentialing policies continue to diminish the ability of NPs to deliver primary care to vulnerable populations. Furthermore, these policies could negatively impact access to care for thousands of newly insured Americans who will be seeking a primary care provider in 2014.

Recently, at the health maintenance organization (HMO) where I work, they introduced an employee time clock. As in many other workplaces, doctors across the country are now obligated to punch the clock at the beginning and end of their workday. This is the final act in an ongoing attempt to enhance management of doctors' schedules: limit nonurgent appointments to 10 minutes, define planned or urgent home visits, and control a physician's time, as well as managerial and clinical decisions. In this story I describe a day in the life of a family doctor, a salaried employee at a large HMO where there is now a time clock. I provide details on how the introduction of the clock influences small everyday clinical decisions that potentially affect the quality and depth of treatment while sharing the internal dialogue that accompanies me as I reaffirm my professional integrity again and again with each hastened visit. I also bring the internal dialogue of 2 of my patients, to illustrate the emotional world on the other side of these 10-minute interventions.

Clinical care contributes only 20 percent to overall health outcomes, according to a population health model developed at the University of Wisconsin. Factors contributing to the remainder include lifestyle behaviors, the physical environment, and social and economic forces--all generally considered outside the realm of care. In 2010 Minnesota-based HealthPartners decided to target nonclinical community health factors as a formal part of its strategic business plan to improve public health in the Twin Cities area. The strategy included creating partnerships with businesses and institutions that are generally unaccustomed to working together or considering how their actions could help improve community health. This article describes efforts to promote healthy eating in schools, reduce the stigma of mental illness, improve end-of-life decision making, and strengthen an inner-city neighborhood. Although still in their early stages, the partnerships can serve as encouragement for organizations inside and outside health care that are considering undertaking similar efforts in their markets.

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) can make important contributions to the transformation of US health care by filling gaps left by tightly controlled clinical trials. However, without comprehensive and comparable data that reflect the diversity of the US health-care system, CER's value will be diminished. We document the limits of observational CER by examining the age at diagnosis, disease stage, and select measures of health-care use among individuals diagnosed with incident cancer aged 65 or older from four large health maintenance organizations (HMOs) relative to seniors identified through the linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data for the period 1999-2007. Aged individuals in the HMOs were younger, diagnosed at earlier stages, and more likely to receive care in inpatient settings than individuals in the linked SEER-Medicare data. These differences highlight the need for comprehensive and comparable datasets that reflect the diversity of US health care to support CER that can inform health-care reform in the United States.

The study examines the likelihood of adverse outcomes associated with selected hospital safety events for two groups of Medicare patients: those enrolled in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) versus those enrolled in fee-for-service (FFS) insurance plans. The authors hypothesize that HMO patients may receive different qualities of hospital services and/or physician services relative to FFS patients. Based on the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Database, the authors include discharge data on all hospitalized elderly Medicare patients in Florida in 2002 and use multivariate logistic regression models with adjustments for hospital-level clusters. The findings demonstrate that, after adjusting for hospital quality, Medicare HMO patients were at higher risk of adverse outcomes than Medicare FFS patients for iatrogenic pneumothorax, accidental puncture or laceration, and postoperative respiratory failure.

Introduction: The practice-guideline process of collecting, critically appraising, and synthesizing available evidence, then developing expert panel recommendations based on appraised evidence, makes it possible to provide high-quality care for patients. Unwanted variability in the quality and rigor of evidence summaries and Clinical Practice Guidelines has been a long-standing challenge for clinicians seeking evidence-based guidance to support patient care decisions., Methods: A multidisciplinary group of stakeholders, with representation from all eight Kaiser Permanente Regions, is responsible for creating National Guidelines. Conducting high-quality systematic reviews and creating clinical guidelines are time-, labor-, and resource-intensive processes, which raises challenges for an organization striving to balance rigor with efficiency. For these reasons, the National Guideline Program elected to allow for the identification, assessment, and possible adoption of existing evidence-based guidelines and systematic reviews using the ADAPTE; Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation; Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR); and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) frameworks. If no acceptable external guidelines are identified, the Guideline Development Team then systematically searches for relevant high-quality systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and original studies. Existing systematic reviews are assessed for quality using a measurement tool to assess systematic reviews (the AMSTAR systematic review checklist)., Study Appraisal: Following the screening and selection process, the included studies (the "body of evidence") are critically appraised for quality, using the GRADE methodology, which focuses on four key factors that must be considered when assigning strength to a recommendation: balance between desirable and undesirable effects, quality of evidence, values and preferences, and cost. The evidence is then used to create preliminary clinical recommendations. The strength of these recommendations is graded to reflect the extent to which a guideline panel is confident that the desirable effects of an intervention outweigh undesirable effects (or vice versa) across the range of patients for whom the recommendation is intended., Dissemination: The Care Management Institute disseminates all KP national guidelines to its eight Regions via postings on its Clinical Library Intranet site, a Web-based internal information resource.

MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland has saved about $18 per member a month by enrolling uninsured patients in an HMO-like system developed by the health system. Patients pay on a sliding scale based on their income. Uninsured patients are signed up for the program when they come to the emergency department and cannot have a clinic visit unless they enroll. The hospital embeds case managers in the health system's clinic to work with uninsured patients to help them avoid emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

Background: Little is known about the practitioners in managed behavioral healthcare organization (MBHO) networks who are treating mental and substance use disorders among privately insured patients in the United States. It is likely that the role of the private sector in treating behavioral health will increase due to the recent implementation of federal parity legislation and the inclusion of behavioral health as a required service in the insurance exchange plans created under healthcare reform. Further, the healthcare reform legislation has highlighted the need to ensure a qualified workforce in order to improve access to quality healthcare, and provides an additional focus on the behavioral health workforce. To expand understanding of treatment of mental and substance use disorders among privately insured patients, this study examines practitioner types, experience, specialized expertise, and demographics of in-network practitioners providing outpatient care in one large national MBHO., Methods: Descriptive analyses used 2004 practitioner credentialing and other administrative data for one MBHO. The sample included 28,897 practitioners who submitted at least one outpatient claim in 2004. Chi-square and t-tests were used to compare findings across types of practitioners., Results: About half of practitioners were female, 12% were bilingual, and mean age was 53, with significant variation by practitioner type. On average, practitioners report 15.3 years of experience (SD = 9.4), also with significant variation by practitioner type. Many practitioners reported specialized expertise, with about 40% reporting expertise for treating children and about 60% for treating adolescents., Conclusions: Overall, these results based on self-report indicate that the practitioner network in this large MBHO is experienced and has specialized training, but echo concerns about the aging of this workforce. These data should provide us with a baseline of practitioner characteristics as we enter an era that anticipates great change in the behavioral health workforce.

As legacy information systems age, transition to newer systems is inevitable, but at times fraught with challenge. This brief article addresses some of the pitfalls, challenges, and benefits we experienced at Kaiser Permanente as we transitioned several key clinical information systems to Epic Systems for our integrated comprehensive Electronic Health Record (EHR).

Objective: The purpose of this study is to describe a reimbursement model that was developed by one Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) to transition from fee-for-service to add a combination of pay for performance and reporting model of reimbursement for chiropractic care., Methods: The previous incentive program used by the HMO provided best-practice education and additional reimbursement incentives for achieving the National Committee for Quality Assurance Back Pain Recognition Program (NCQA-BPRP) recognition status. However, this model had not leveled costs between doctors of chiropractic (DCs). Therefore, the HMO management aimed to develop a reimbursement model to incentivize providers to embrace existing best-practice models and report existing quality metrics. The development goals included the following: it should (1) be as financially predictable as the previous system, (2) cost no more on a per-member basis, (3) meet the coverage needs of its members, and (4) be able to be operationalized. The model should also reward DCs who embraced best practices with compensation, not simply tied to providing more procedures, the new program needed to (1) cause little or no disruption in current billing, (2) be grounded achievable and defined expectations for improvement in quality, and (3) be voluntary, without being unduly punitive, should the DC choose not to participate in the program., Results: The generated model was named the Comprehensive Chiropractic Quality Reimbursement Methodology (CCQRM; pronounced "Quorum"). In this hybrid model, additional reimbursement, beyond pay-for-procedures will be based on unique payment interpretations reporting selected, existing Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) codes, meaningful use of electronic health records, and achieving NCQA-BPRP recognition. This model aims to compensate providers using pay-for-performance, pay-for-quality reporting, pay-for-procedure methods., Conclusion: The CCQRM reimbursement model was developed to address the current needs of one HMO that aims to transition from fee-for-service to a pay-for-performance and quality reporting for reimbursement for chiropractic care. This model is theoretically based on the combination of a fee-for-service payment, pay for participation (NCQA Back Pain Recognition Program payment), meaningful use of electronic health record payment, and pay for reporting (PQRS-BPMG payment). Evaluation of this model needs to be implemented to determine if it will achieve its intended goals., (Copyright © 2012 National University of Health Sciences. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Describe the status of language access services for California's limited English proficient (LEP) health maintenance organization (HMO) members within the context of voluntary public reporting and anticipated state regulation., Study Design: Descriptive analysis of longitudinal data provided by health plans., Methods: Retrospective, descriptive analysis of responses to voluntary annual/biennial surveys of commercial, Medicare, Medicaid, and Healthy Families HMOs, 2003-2008., Results: From 2003 to 2008, during California's public reporting of HMO language services, the percentage of HMOs providing in-person interpretation free of charge to consumers increased to over 80% across all product lines. By 2008, the percentage of commercial HMO plans matching new LEP members to providers by language increased to 70%, while 79% provided telephone interpretation services in at least seven languages., Conclusions: Increasingly HMOs provide language access services for LEP Californians, perhaps resulting from public reporting and anticipated state regulation, although similar trends in other states cannot be ruled out.

Aims: To evaluate whether rescinding the prior authorization (PA) requirement (managerial pre-approval) for losartan in an health maintenance organization (HMO) could reduce prescribing of the more expensive angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs)., Methods: HMO physicians were notified that losartan would no longer require PA, and appropriate changes were made to the electronic prescribing computer program. The monthly distribution by drug of the number of prescriptions for ARBs dispensed for new patients was calculated before and after the policy change from data captured from electronic records. The proportion of patients (percentage and 95% confidence interval) treated with losartan who met the criteria for treatment with ARBs (hypertension or cardiac insufficiency in patients who have developed adverse effects in response to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or macroproteinuria) during the first month after the PA requirement was rescinded was calculated., Results: The total number of PA requests for ARBs declined by 48.6% from 961 in December 2008, the month before the policy change, to 494 the following January, rising again to 651 during January 2010. Prescription incidence changed from 121 to 255 patients treated per month (114% increase) for losartan, from 15 to 16 (6.7% increase) for candesartan, and from 89 to 71 (20.2% decrease) for valsartan. The duration of effect for decrease in ARB requests for the more expensive drugs was approximately 1 year. Only 23.3% (95% confidence interval 18.1-28.4) of patients receiving losartan met the criteria for receiving ARBs., Conclusions: Rescinding the PA requirement for this drug alone was an effective limited-duration strategy for reduction of prescription of relatively expensive drugs., (© 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology © 2011 The British Pharmacological Society.)

The objective of this study was to compare the preventable emergency department (ED) admissions of Medicaid health maintenance organization (HMO) beneficiaries and commercial HMO beneficiaries in the state of Florida, in addition to analyzing the effect of HMO market conditions in relation to these admissions. Paired and unpaired t tests and 10 regression equations were estimated using ED hospital admission data to examine the differences between Medicaid and commercial HMOs in 5 commonly recognized preventable hospitalization conditions. For the same preventable ED admissions, Medicaid and commercial HMO beneficiaries had statistically different rates of admission. In 3 of 5 conditions, Medicaid HMO beneficiaries had more preventable ED admissions than did commercial HMOs for the same conditions. HMO market conditions did not have a statistically significant association with preventable ED admissions for either beneficiary group, whereas teaching status and the percentage of females admitted to the hospital under a given HMO payer type had the greatest effect on preventable ED admissions. Whereas uncontrolled comparisons of preventable ED admissions are statistically different between Medicaid and commercial HMO beneficiaries, controlling for hospital and patient characteristics, market conditions do not affect the rate of preventable ED admissions.

Introduction: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a broad term that encompasses diverse healthcare modalities that emanate from a variety of healing cultures. One of the basic principles of CAM is the promotion of cultural pluralism and openness to diverse cultural aspects of health and illness. Some CAM modalities have been integrated into Israeli healthcare organizations over the past two decades., Aim: The objective of this research was to examine whether the integrated CAM modalities match the preferences of Israel's diverse ethnic groups., Methodology: The research was conducted in northern Israel, an area marked by ethnic and religious diversity. We gathered information about the types of CAM modalities included in the clinics of all four public health funds health maintenance organizations (HMOs)--by means of a telephone survey. This data was assessed in relation to previous data regarding patients' preferences on integrating CAM in community care., Results: The 4 HMOs offer 24 CAM modalities within 58 clinics in northern Israel. The most common CAM modalities are: reflexology, Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, massage, shiatsu, twina, homeopathy and naturopathy. These modalities partly match the Jewish and Arab populations' preferences concerning Chinese medicine and touch/movement modalities. The Arab population, however, which reports greater use of folk-traditional medicine, such as consultation with healers and use of herbal medicine, do not have these treatment options available within healthcare organizations., Conclusions: Western-oriented CAM modalities are integrated within the IsraeLi HMOs, while local folk-traditional medicine is not. The integrated modalities accord with the Jewish populations' preferences more than with those of the Arab population., Discussion: Some of the factors that influence integration are discussed. Certain homegrown traditional healthcare modalities, such as use of local medicinal herbs, should be considered for addition to current CAM practices. Developing integrative medicine within a common Jewish-Arabic space could have medical as well as social-cultural advantages.

Compared with the history of national guideline development, the science attached to implementation of guidelines is relatively new. Effectiveness of a highly evidence-based guideline, such as the 8th Joint National Committee recommendations on the treatment of high blood pressure, depends on successful translation into clinical practice. Implementation relies on several steps: clear and executable guideline language, audit and feedback attached to education of practitioners charged with carrying out the guidelines, team-based care delivery, credibility of blood pressure measurement, and measures to address therapeutic inertia and medication adherence. An evolving role of the electronic health record and patient empowerment are developments that will further promote implementation of the hypertension guideline. Further research will be needed to assess the efficacy and cost effectiveness of various implementation tools and strategies., (Copyright © 2011 American Society of Hypertension. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The health care delivery system is changing rapidly, with providers forming patient-centered medical homes and exploring the creation of accountable care organizations. Enactment of the Affordable Care Act will likely accelerate these changes. Significant delivery system reforms will simultaneously affect the structures, capabilities, incentives, and outcomes of the delivery system. With so many changes taking place at once, there is a need for a new tool to track progress at the community level. Many of the necessary data elements for a delivery system reform tracking tool are already being collected in various places and by different stakeholders. The authors propose that all elements be brought together in a unified whole to create a detailed picture of delivery system change. This brief provides a rationale for creating such a tool and presents a framework for doing so.

Background: Specialty drugs are generally defined as high-cost injectable, infused, oral, or inhaled drugs that require close monitoring. Specialty drugs account for an increasing percentage of total drug expenditures, and management of specialty drugs has become a priority. A Central Texas-based integrated health maintenance organization system implemented a specialty drug benefit to manage expensive specialty drug costs., Objectives: Our objective was to measure and compare the change in adherence and persistence after implementation of copayment increases for select specialty medications used on a long-term basis (at least 2 years)., Methods: Patients who were long-term users of anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressant, cancer, and multiple sclerosis medications were selected. The intervention group consisted of those whose out-of-pocket payment for specialty medications increased, and the control group consisted of those whose out-of-pocket costs did not change. Adherence, defined by proportion of days covered, was measured every 3 months for 12 months before and after the change. Individual growth model analysis evaluated the changes in adherence. Cox regression analysis determined the difference in persistence between groups., Results: There were 178 and 202 patients in the intervention and control groups, respectively. The growth model showed a small but statistically significant decrease in proportion of days covered of 0.040 after copay changes in the intervention versus control group (P < 0.001) for immunosuppressants. The Cox regression analysis indicated a higher probability of intervention patients on anti-inflammatory drugs (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.53; 95% CI, 1.38-4.62) and immunosuppressants (HR = 3.01; 95% CI, 1.20-7.56) would be nonpersistent compared with those in their control groups., Conclusions: The move to the specialty formulary allows for closer scrutiny of specialty utilization by pharmacists, who actively monitor utilization and access. Despite the minimal adherence decrease and significant persistence changes with certain drug types, the results indicated relatively more stability with specialty drug use than reported with traditional pharmaceuticals., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier HS Journals, Inc. All rights reserved.)