Articles

Hospitals in Miami produced 13 percent fewer high-quality hospital stays than the U.S. average, while hospitals in Everett, Washington, a city 25 miles north of Seattle, perform over 20 percent better than average on value.

The proportion of settlements related to psychiatric emergencies has increased in recent years, suggesting the need for more resources to improve access and quality of care for patients with psychiatric emergencies.

Obese children are likely to remain obese as adults, increasing their risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer and premature death. Change needs to start with parents taking childhood obesity seriously, educating themselves about nutrition, and controlling what their kids eat.

In the struggle to help people with mental illness cope with their affliction, a powerful long term tool has been overlooked: school. Seth Seabury and Thomas Insel write on the importance of education in expanding opportunities for patients with serious mental illness.

Schaeffer researcher Glenn Melnick writes that we need legislation that reduces hospitals’ emergency room leverage by capping out-of-network emergency room charges and to rein in the growing economic power of large healthcare enterprises in California.

Jacobson and Alpert studied more than 2.4 million monthly claims for chemotherapy treatment and found little impact on outpatient chemotherapy treatment for the majority of oncology drugs identified as experiencing shortages between 2004 and 2011.

Neeraj Sood presented on the importance of prioritizing quality care, rather than just access, in the universal healthcare coverage movement. He is optimistic that the enthusiasm he observed will translate into real changes on the ground, saving lives and building momentum for universal quality care.

The biggest reason health care in the United States costs so much more than in other wealthy countries is that it takes more, and more highly paid, people to deliver care, says Quintiles Senior Fellow Bob Kocher. He offers policy solutions for improving labor productivity.

A new USC Schaeffer Center study shows the return on investing in improving educational attainment for those diagnosed with serious mental illness by age twenty-five, projecting positive impacts on health and economic outcomes.

Initiative researchers propose a blueprint for achieving universal coverage at a manageable fiscal cost and with minimal disruption for the hundreds of millions of Americans who are already insured.