Patient experience surveys are a cornerstone of public reporting and pay-for-performance initiatives. Some healthcare providers, payers, and other stakeholders have expressed concerns about declining response rates and representativeness of these surveys [pdf], especially for underserved groups. Increasing response rates is an important goal. Several strategies have been proposed to increase response rates, including administering surveys… Read More »
The pursuit of health equity requires public health and medical professionals to become adept at policy in their health advocacy work. The American Public Health Association (APHA), in fact, defines policy work as one of its 10 essential public health services. APHA says professionals should be capable of “creating, championing and implementing policies, plans and laws”.… Read More »
Peer review often elicits strong feelings among editors, authors, and reviewers. Many people have experienced the author and reviewer parts of the equation with both good and bad experiences. Flashback to when I was a newly minted Ph.D., I was thrilled with every request I received and diligently tried to provide useful reviews. However, I… Read More »
Check out our November 2021 Podcast for a recap of recently published blogs and a preview of articles in the November 2021 issue of Medical Care.
How is research on patient-centered transitional care going? A supplement on this topic funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) was recently published in Medical Care. Care transitions are “ripe with hazard,” as discussed in an editorial from Amy Berman. As pointed out by Berman, figuring out what works and what doesn’t is critical to… Read More »
COVID-19-related scams are spreading nearly as fast as COVID-19 and threatening the health and safety of our communities. Since January 2020, people across the country have filed over 426,000 COVID-19-related complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about fraud, identify theft, and other consumer protection. They have reported losses totaling over $397 million. As trusted… Read More »
This fall, CMS launched two new websites: Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog (PDC). Both tools replaced the eight existing Compare tools and data.medicare.gov, which were sunset last year. The data included on Care Compare is intended to help Medicare beneficiaries make informed decisions about their care. While there have been articles and press releases… Read More »
Note from the Editors: Last week capped two jam-packed weeks of political nominating convention activities. COVID-19 was discussed at both conventions. The Washington Post fact-checked some of the health care claims at the Democratic convention. Here, with the permission of Kaiser Health News and Politifact, we are republishing their recent fact-checking of the COVID-19 content from the Republican… Read More »
For decades, peer-reviewed journals have been a critical pathway for disseminating and advancing scientific knowledge. However, curbing the spread of misinformation requires evidence translation by experts into plain English. The rapidly evolving knowledge base on COVID-19 shines a spotlight on the issue. For example, a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine offered… Read More »
Welcome to the final post in our series on patient portals – an attempt to imagine the future. Part 1 of this series summarized the latest data on who is using portals. Part 2 explained some of the barriers to use as well as what factors increase use. Evidence of Increased Patient Engagement and Other… Read More »
In Part 1 of this series, I summarized the latest data on who is accessing patient portals and for what purposes. In this post, I discuss the facilitators and barriers to patient portal use. General barriers to patient portal use Let’s start by discussing barriers to portal use. Patient portals have generally not been created to… Read More »
Creating the Healthiest Nation: For science. For action. For health. The annual meeting of the American Public Health Association is just around the corner! The meeting starts this weekend, November 2nd, and runs through November 6th in Philadelphia. Special Sessions The Medical Care Section has some fantastic sessions planned for the meeting. In addition to… Read More »
Do you use social media? If so, how many social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn) are you a member of? With about 40% of the world’s population already on some form of online social media, even if you don’t use it, you’ve probably heard of it. Devoting several hours each day to… Read More »
If you have a question, how do you find the answer? Many of us do a quick Google search or search out the answer at a library. However, people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families face many challenges and barriers when trying to locate information. A recent episode of the (highly recommended) podcast… Read More »
“A graduate student was threatened with a lawsuit and retraction of a published paper unless she paid thousands of dollars and signed a retroactive license for having used a measure without paying the fee.” This example was one of the motivating factors for a recent Medical Care commentary by Dr. Ron Hays and colleagues. The commentary… Read More »
October is here, so along with the fall foliage, prepare yourself for a deluge of pink ribbons, umbrellas, bumper stickers, and billboards: it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Started as a well-intentioned campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer and fundraise for breast cancer research, some have said that the movement commodifies a deadly disease at… Read More »
Let’s be honest, who doesn’t love cat videos? I’m not even a cat person, and I find cat videos to be extremely entertaining. Even if you don’t love cats or cat videos, you have to admit that internet cats have become quite a cultural phenomenon. In 2014, there were about 2 million cat videos on YouTube,… Read More »
Last month, I left readers with a bit of cliffhanger: How do we actually improve care coordination? Last time, I suggested there were some great ideas, and now it’s time to delve into three promising strategies: 1) individualize and personalize the electronic medical record (EMR); 2. fix the hospital discharge process; and 3) make it a part of normal practice to measure care coordination. Read on for more about each of these tools…
In 2014 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one in every 68 children have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Consequently, there is a lot of discussion regarding potential causes of autism. However, for this post, I wanted to move away from this more commonly discussed topic and focus instead on how assistive technology (specifically iPads) are being… Read More »
As our country’s diverse populations grow, the variety in the numbers of spoken languages and dialects is also on the rise. In 2013, approximately 25.1 million individuals were considered Limited English Proficiency (LEP), which is a term that refers to individuals ages 5 and older who report speaking English less than very well as per… Read More »