HCFO News

A new solicitation from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE) program seeks to fund timely, policy-relevant studies that examine the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the states, and/or the law’s impact on coverage, health care utilization, and affordability.  Competitive proposals will have strong empirical designs, and may involve a single state, groups of states, or national analyses that use state-level data.  This call for proposals is designed to improve the collective understanding of health reform at

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Quality/Equality Team, with support from the Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) Initiative, is pleased to announce it has awarded six grants that will explore the use of price data in health care.

With an eye toward greater transparency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released data on the prices that more than 3000 hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures.  These 2011 data underscore the wide variation among hospital prices across the country and within communities.  For example, average inpatient charges for services a hospital may provide in connection with a joint replacement range from a low of $5,300 at a hospital in Ada, Okla., to a high of $223,000 at a hospital in Monterey Park, Calif.  These data also show

Hosted by AcademyHealth's Public Health Systems Research (PHSR) Interest Group, this March 26 webinar helped researchers identify publication opportunities for public health research and explore options for expediting the process by which evidence is disseminated. It focused on opportunities for influencing policy and practice, such as new media vehicles, open access publications, and commentaries. Speakers described techniques to present research for different audiences and to improve its use in decision-making.

A new solicitation from the RWJF Quality/Equality program seeks to fund empirical studies with strong research designs that would contribute to our knowledge of the use and impact of health care price data, with the goal of providing reliable and generalizable evidence to inform policy makers and delivery system participants and to help accelerate progress toward using price information effectively.

On February 21, 2013, the ABIM Foundation held a news conference releasing recommendations from 17 leading medical societies. These recommendations outlined common medical services that, according to the available evidence, are unnecessary and perhaps even harmful to patients. These recommendations came out in a second wave of the Choosing Wisely campaign, which has encouraged physicians and patients to question the use of more than 130 tests and procedures.

For health services researchers seeking to address questions related to health care financing and organization, public/population health, comparative effectiveness, and disparities, mHealth tools can provide a cost effective means to move beyond the usual reliance on claims data.  These devices can be used to collect and work with information on patients’ characteristics, communities, experiences and outcomes, as well as data on providers and delivery systems.  New tools are highly effective, efficient, flexible, affordable and ubiquitous – and readily usable, regardle

For health services researchers seeking to address questions related to health care financing and organization, public/population health, comparative effectiveness, and disparities, mHealth tools can provide a cost effective means to move beyond the usual reliance on claims data.  These devices can be used to collect and work with information on patients’ characteristics, communities, experiences and outcomes, as well as data on providers and delivery systems.  New tools are highly effective, efficient, flexible, affordable and ubiquitous – and readily usable, regardle

For health services researchers seeking to address questions related to health care financing and organization, public/population health, comparative effectiveness, and disparities, mHealth tools can provide a cost effective means to move beyond the usual reliance on claims data.  These devices can be used to collect and work with information on patients’ characteristics, communities, experiences and outcomes, as well as data on providers and delivery systems.  New tools are highly effective, efficient, flexible, affordable and ubiquitous – and readily usable, regardle

For health services researchers seeking to address questions related to health care financing and organization, public/population health, comparative effectiveness, and disparities, mHealth tools can provide a cost effective means to move beyond the usual reliance on claims data. These devices can be used to collect and work with information on patients’ characteristics, communities, experiences and outcomes, as well as data on providers and delivery systems.