Communication between patients and providers is critical in hospital emergency departments, but most interpretive services for non-English speakers—often provided via telephone or ad hoc by untrained bilingual staff or family member(s)—vary in quality. This issue brief identifies...

Policymakers, private-sector coalitions, and individual health care leaders are heavily engaged in planning future health information technology. This brief highlights the experiences of eight pioneering projects completed under the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Transforming...

This study examined providers' efforts to improve care delivery, similar to those likely to be encouraged under ACOs. Common challenges for affiliated health care organizations’ efforts to improve care are establishing a business case for change and implementing changes with minimal disruption...

Public and private payers are developing hospital care pay for performance (P4P) initiatives as part of a broader national movement to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care services. These initiatives augment or reduce payments to a hospital on the basis of its performance on...

The California HealthCare Foundation has devoted substantial resources to promoting public reporting on the quality of California hospitals, physician groups, and nursing homes. Mathematica conducted an evaluation of the foundation's work from 1998 through 2005, identifying lessons from its...

Although the quality of health care in our nation varies widely, consumers have historically had little information about quality to help them make better choices. Hospital Compare, a central component of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Quality Initiative, is an...

To better understand the population of Medicaid enrollees living in nursing homes or intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ICFs/IID), researchers analyzed data from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) from 2006 and 2007 to determine the characteristics of...

There is increasing interest in the potential of health information technology (HIT) to improve quality of care, prevent medical errors, and increase administrative efficiencies in the nursing home setting. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of nursing homes that were...

For calendar year 2010, 28 states spent almost $23.6 billion on HCBS, with 80 percent of expenditures categorized as round-the-clock, home-based, and day services. Other services, such as case management, or equipment, modifications, and technology were widely used, but are not particularly...