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Daniel Eisenberg, PhD - NIMH Post-Doctoral Scholar, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
September 9, 2003
This project, which is still in preliminary stages, will examine the impacts of California's mental health parity bill enacted in July 2000. The parity bill requires that insurance benefits for certain mental health conditions are equal to benefits for physical health conditions. The analysis will evaluate the direct effects of the bill on the private mental health system as well as possible indirect effects on the public mental health system.
Dr. Eisenberg's presentation is now available for viewing.
Sean Sullivan, PhD - Professor, Departments of Pharmacy and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle
September 23, 2003
Lung-volume-reduction surgery is a new treatment for patients with severe emphysema, the value of which is, as yet, uncertain. Because the potential clinical and economic effects of this treatment are large, a federally sponsored, multi-center, randomized, controlled trial was initiated to evaluate its effectiveness. Dr. Sullivan will be reporting on the study's prospective economic analysis.
Download a copy of Dr. Sullivan's paper.
Deryk Van Brunt, DrPH - Chairman, eMedicine; Director, the Healthy Communities Foundation; and Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
October 7, 2003
Dr. Van Brunt will discuss the different kinds of consumer health information systems now in place, how are they being used, and what impact they have on health status. He will also briefly cover other related issues, such as health data privacy on the Internet and future directions for Web-based health information.
Joe Selby, MD, MPH - Director, Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, Oakland
October 21, 2003
Whereas quality of care has been measured primarily by looking at processes of care, the evidence linking changes in most process measures with clinical outcomes is weak or non-existent. Dr. Selby will present data from a survey and chart review study of nearly 12,000 diabetic patients from 56 provider groups that also collected information on the intensity of disease management activities from the medical directors of these provider groups. The intensity of reported provider group disease management activities was strongly related to seven diabetes processes of care indicators, but was not at all related to the three major predictors of complications and death in diabetes. These findings suggest that disease management and quality improvement efforts may need to re-focus on more detailed efforts to change clinical practice if outcomes are to improve.
Dr. Selby's presentation is now available for viewing.
Jonathan Ketcham, PhD - 2002-2004 Robert Wood Johnson Scholar
Karen Lutfey, PhD - 2002-2004 Robert Wood Johnson Scholar; and Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota
November 4, 2003
Variations in treatment patterns are thought to be determined primarily by physician beliefs about the efficacy of the options for treatment. For many medical conditions, efficacy depends in part on patient adherence to the prescribed treatment regimen. Consequently, clinical decision making may depend in part on the physician perception of patient adherence. Drs. Ketcham and Lutfey will discuss data collected from two diabetes clinics in a large Midwestern city that compare the determinants of physician perception of adherence for an individual patient with the patient's self-reported adherence.
Drs. Ketcham and Lutfey's presentation is now available for viewing.
M. Kate Bundorf, MBA, MPH, PhD - Assistant Professor, Department of Health Research & Policy, Stanford University
November 25, 2003
A number of studies suggest that collecting quality data about health plans is of limited value because consumers make only limited use of quality information in their health plan choices. However, this does not address another possible beneficial effect of collecting quality data. In areas where quality data is collected, medical practice patterns may change correspondingly, improving the practice of medicine throughout the area. Dr. Bundorf reports on the extent to which quality reporting activity among managed care plans within an area affects area level health care delivery patterns.
Download a copy of Dr. Bundorf's abstract.
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