February 2015

February 18, 2015

No corporate weight control program has ever reported savings or even sustained weight loss using valid metrics across a sizable population for 2 years or more, accounting for dropouts and nonparticipants. Further, these programs can harm morale and even the health of the employees themselves.

February 19, 2015

Measurement and accountability are now part of the DNA of our entire healthcare system, and cost and quality are both improving.

February 19, 2015

This study examined the impact of the Medicare Part D coverage gap on medication use by Hispanics, blacks, and whites with diabetes.

February 19, 2015

A study to determine the health literacy of elderly patients and establish whether an association exists between health literacy and cardiovascular disease risk factors.

February 19, 2015

Incomplete records of patient history can bias hospital profiling. Completing health records for Medicare-covered patients in VA hospitals resulted in modest changes in hospital performance.

February 19, 2015

A collaborative practice model to reduce hospital readmissions from an outpatient environment.

March 30, 2015

Quality benefits were equal across racial/ethnic groups with equal personal health record (PHR) use, but nonwhite status and a preference for Spanish language predicted lower PHR registration.

February 27, 2015

Successful patient engagement in a nationally available, remotely delivered behavioral health intervention can significantly improve medical outcomes and lower healthcare costs.

March 20, 2015

Implementing patient decision aids was associated with lower rates of elective surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia and of active treatment for localized prostate cancer.

March 20, 2015

The authors identify a 4-step plan to accelerate the spread of evidence-based practices.

March 23, 2015

Safety net hospitals reduce emergency surgeries among Medicaid and uninsured patients, and provide a benefit to these populations relative to other providers.

March 23, 2015

Data suggest that behavioral health providers and services must be included as core components of accountable care organizations to achieve desired health and cost outcomes.

March 25, 2015

This article identifies patient-, provider-, and system-level factors associated with the problem of self-monitoring blood glucose without use of the results.

March 25, 2015

Using an ICD-9-CM code algorithm, the authors effectively identified potentially difficult-to-reach populations for a hypertension clinical trial.

March 26, 2015

A systematic review of presenteeism instruments found that most have been validated to some extent, but evidence for criterion validity is virtually absent.

March 30, 2015

An original emergency department patient survey, insurance claims data, and administrative records are used to examine the characteristics of nonurgent users.