Tuesday, August 11, 2009

[EQ] Health Affairs - Is Health Policy Research Helping Decisionmakers? - The Unhealthy State Of Health Policy Research

Connecting The Ivory Tower To Main Street: 
Setting Research Priorities For Real-World Impact

It's time to tighten the connections between health services researchers and private-sector decision makers so that research answers private payers' top questions.

by Claudia L. Schur, Marc L. Berk, Lauren E. Silver, Jill M. Yegian, and Michael J. O'Grady

Claudia Schur  is vice president and director of the Center for Health Research and Policy, Social and Scientific Systems (SSS), in Silver Spring, Maryland. Marc Berk is group vice president and directs the Health Policy and Data Analysis Group at the center. Lauren Silver was a research analyst at the center and is now a doctoral student at Emory University. Jill Yegian is director of Research and Evaluation at the California HealthCare Foundation in Oakland. Michael O’Grady is a senior fellow at NORC in Bethesda, Maryland

Health Affairs 28, no. 5 (2009): w886-w899 (published online 11 August 2009; 10.1377/hlthaff.28.5.w886

Available online at: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.28.5.w886

ABSTRACT:
Health care decision makers face increasing pressure to use health care resources more efficiently, but the information they need to assess policy options often is unavailable or not disseminated in a useful form.
Findings from stakeholder meetings and a survey of private-sector health care decision makers in California begin to identify high-priority issues, the perceived adequacy of current information, and preferred formats and other desired attributes of research.
This is a first step in establishing a systematic approach to linking the information priorities of private-sector decision makers with those who fund and conduct research.
Health Affairs 28, no. 5 (2009)

The Unhealthy State Of Health Policy Research

Sumit R. Majumdar 1 Stephen B. Soumerai 2*
1 Sumit Majumdar is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, in Edmonton.
2 Stephen Soumerai is a professor in the Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Health Affairs 28, no. 5 (2009): w900-w908 (published online 11 August 2009; 10.1377/hlthaff.28.5.w900)]

Poor-quality policy research can jeopardize the quality of policies that rely on that research--especially in an intense reform debate.

Available online at: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.28.5.w900

”…Health policies often represent large-scale natural experiments with poorly understood risks and benefits. Unfortunately, researchers often stray from the core principles of study design required to provide valid evidence.

The result is that policymakers and the public do not always know what to believe. We illustrate the problem in several fields, including pay-for-performance, cost sharing, and health information technology policies.

We suggest a few ways to improve health policy research so that evidence can inform policy more often. The way forward should include more credible data for those making the hard trade-offs between cost and quality of care….” Health Affairs 28, no. 5 (2009):

 

*      *      *     *
This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO website: http://66.101.212.219/equity/
Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

 

    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.  

[EQ] Capacity planning in health care

Policy Brief

Capacity planning in health care - A review of the international experience

Reinhard Busse, Technische Universität Berlin;
Carl-Ardy Dubois, University of Montreal;
Isabelle Durand-Zaleski, Hôpital Henri Mondor, Paris;
Niek Klazinga, University of Amsterdam;
Allan Krasnik, University of Copenhagen;
Walter Ricciardi, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome;
Juha Teperi, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), Helsinki

World Health Organization 2008, on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

Available online as PDF [67p.] at: http://www.euro.who.int/Document/E91193.pdf

“……Health systems in most high-income countries aim to provide a comprehensive range of services to the entire population and to ensure that standards of quality, equity and responsiveness are maintained. Although approaches vary widely, responsibility for developing the overall framework for financing and organizing health care usually lies with the central government, while governance of the health system is often shared by central and regional authorities.

 

In this policy brief, we review approaches to capacity planning, a crucial component of health care governance. By concentrating on a selection of countries as diverse as Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and New Zealand, we aim to show a range of approaches to health care financing and organization, since both of these factors have an impact on approaches to capacity planning.

 

In most countries, health care capacity planning takes place at national, regional or local level, reflecting the various tiers of government within health systems, but the distinction between these levels is not always clear cut. For example, regional and local authorities may oversee entities that differ greatly in terms of population size, legal and political mandates and organizational structures. In most of the countries we reviewed, health care capacity planning has been devolved to regional level (often reflecting devolution of overall responsibility for the organization of health care), with Denmark and Finland regarding local authorities as important actors….”

*      *      *     *
This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO website: http://66.101.212.219/equity/
Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

 

 

    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.  

[EQ] Medicine and public health in a multiethnic world

Medicine and public health in a multiethnic world

 Raj Bhopal, Alexander Bruce and John Usher Professor of Public Health
Public Health Sciences, Centre for Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Journal of Public Health Advance Access published on July 7, 2009.
doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdp069

 


URL: http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/fdp069


“…….Achievement of medical and public health goals requires mutual understanding between professionals and the public, a challenge in diverse societies. Despite their massive diversity humans belong to one species, with race and ethnicity used to subgroup/classify humans and manage diversity.

Classifications are contextual and vary by time, place and classifier. As classifications show major variations in health status, and risk factors, research using race and ethnicity has accelerated. Medical sciences, including epidemiology, are learning fast to extract value from such data.

Among the debatable issues is the value of the relative risk versus absolute risk approaches (the latter is gaining ground), and how to assess ethnicity and race (self-assignment is favoured in the UK and North America, country of birth in continental Europe).

Racial and ethnic variations in disease and risk factors are often large and usually unexplained. There is a compelling case for ethnic monitoring, despite its difficulties, for tackling inequalities and as a foundation for research. Medical and public health goals require good data collected in a racism-free social environment. Health professionals need to find the benefits of exploring differences while avoiding social division. Advances in health care, public health and medical science will follow….”

 

Scope of the paper

• the multiethnic society,

• migration,

• species, race and ethnicity,

• problems and benefits of using ethnicity and race in health,

• use and interpretation of variations in disease and health status by ethnic group,

• difference between inequalities and inequities,

• importance to medical sciences and clinical practice of inequalities and inequities,

• a vision of the doctor of the future…..”

 

 

*      *      *     *
This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO website: http://66.101.212.219/equity/
Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.