Hospital Concentration Index
A small number of hospitals in many U.S. metro areas increasingly are seeing most of the country’s hospital admissions. Some 67% of U.S. metro areas, 75 cities and towns, had high concentrations of hospitals in 2012, but those figures increased by 2016. That year, some 81 metro areas had high concentrations of health care facilities. Rural areas tended to have more patients who sought their care from only a few hospitals. Health care spending in the United States is increasing and accounts for nearly 18% of U.S. economic activity. According to a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute, while policymakers continue to explore the contributors to this phenomenon at the national level, differing local trends add complexity, but critical detail, to the picture of how health care dollars are spent across the country. Investigators analyzed more than 1.8 billion health care claims for individuals with commercial insurance from 2012 to 2016. They computed measures of health care service prices and use, and other measures such as provider market structure for 112 local areas in 43 states. They found that not only did spending trends and drivers vary substantially across metro areas, they varied within metro areas when data were segmented into categories like inpatient, outpatient, and physician services. In summary, each metro had a different experience. The report can be obtained here.
Reducing Inequities In Healthy Life Expectancy
A September 2019 brief from the Urban Institute is one of an eight-part Catalyst series indicating what it would take to advance bold solutions over the next 50 years. Across the country, health care providers and public, private, and nonprofit payers are exploring solutions to help individuals meet their health-related social needs, particularly among Medicaid enrollees. Along the way, they are generating new insights and raising critical questions about what works. The brief highlights five bold approaches that could narrow inequities in health outcomes and healthy life : (1) Assess health-related social needs, (2) Build community resource networks, (3) Incentivize investments in non-medical services with health payoffs, (4) Provide sustainable financing, and (5) Align organizational policies and activities. Based on conversations with innovative thinkers and doers, three areas also were identified where today’s health care payers, plans, and providers need new data and analysis to accelerate promising solutions for improving health equity by better addressing individuals’ health-related social needs. They are: (1) Identify high-priority social needs, (2) Build an actionable evidence base of proven interventions, and (3) Assess strategies for integrating health, social services, and other systems. The brief can be obtained here.
Investing In Interventions That Address Non-Medical, Health-Related Social Needs
On April 26, 2019, the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine held a public workshop to explore the potential effects of addressing non-medical, health-related social needs on improving population health and reducing health care spending in a value-driven health care delivery system. The presentations and discussions highlighted in this Proceedings of a Workshop provide a general discussion of the issues, trends, and the opportunities and challenges of investing in interventions that address patients’ non-medical, health-related social needs. The Proceedings can be obtained here.
UNCERTAINTY IN RELATION TO EXISTENTIALISM
Indicates the importance of conducting more research on the topic of uncertainty, an incompletely understood phenomenon. Read More
PRESIDENT’S CORNER—ASAHP MEMBER FOCUS
Susan Hanrahan offers her thoughts on the upcoming ASAHP Annual Conference from the standpoint of speakers, a leadership panel, and the Business Meeting, along with updated information about the Association’s Institutional Profile Survey. Read More
AVOIDING A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Describes legislation involving appropriations for fiscal year 2020 that begins on October 1, 2019 and action underway to reduce pharmaceutical costs. Read More
HEALTH REFORM DEVELOPMENTS
Discusses questions pertaining to enactment of proposed Medicare For All Legislation. Read More
DEVELOPMENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Summarizes finalization of stricter rules for student loan claims and trends in the ratio of the Pell Grant to total price of attendance and federal loan receipt. Read More
QUICK STAT (SHORT, TIMELY, AND TOPICAL)
Mortality Patterns Between States With Highest Death Rates And States With Lowest Death Rates
Comparing Retail Clinics With Other Sites Of Care
The Use Of Small-Scale, Soft Continuum Robots To Navigate In Cerebrovascular Areas
The Use Of “Phyjamas” In Health Care Read More
BALEFUL IMPACT OF WORKPLACE INCIVILITY ON HEALTH
Mentions how dissimilarity in political identity can relate to reducing the quality of interpersonal interactions and subsequent well-being of workers. Read More
“BURNOUT” AND EARLIER SOMATIC PHENOMENA
Refers to a possible relationship between burnout in the 21st century and neurasthenia in an earlier century. Read More
THE ROLE OF ACCIDENTS ON THE PATHWAY TO INJURY AND DEATH
Examines factors pertaining to death and injury of adolescents from motor vehicle accidents and adult mishaps stemming from attempts to remove an avocado pit with a knife. Read More