February 2013

Conventional individualized diabetes self-management education resulted in sustained improvement in self-efficacy and diabetes distress. Short-term improvements in A1C, nutrition, and physical activity were not sustained.

The use of oral nutritional supplementation may offer impressive benefits in healthcare resource use and associated costs. Application of evidence-based practice guidelines is recommended.

Instrumental variables regression analysis indicated that inpatient oral nutritional supplement use decreased length of stay, episode cost, and 30-day readmission probability.

Primary care teams implementing medical homes experience professional role confusion and interpersonal conflict, and require effective administrative leadership to ensure success during this transition.

Policy makers should not expect public sector electronic medical record investments to yield substantial short-term improvements in publicly reported measures.

Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor therapy reduces hospitalizations and improves chemotherapy administration in elderly breast cancer patients, but increases overall Medicare costs during first year of therapy.

Formularies of the future should use evidence-produced CER to better target, not limit, diabetes care.

Across the US, adults with major medical conditions were less likely to die in hospitals with higher spending levels, even after adjusting for patient risk.

Bar code medication administration can be an effective and potentially cost-saving solution to prevent harmful medication administration errors in the community hospital setting.

In Medicare Part D, generic drug coverage was cost saving compared with no coverage in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia while improving health outcomes.

The use of health services research to uncover healthcare fraud and abuse represents a novel, yet timely, implementation of this science.

Team-based performance incentives may improve healthcare team performance, but provider organizations face a number of structural, technical, and cultural barriers to adopting them.