Healthcare system transformation resulting from health reform cannot be overlooked by the "straight-up" population health contingent. I've encountered resistance to becoming familiar with the transformation components of the legislation.  Purists consider lack of illness the only true measure of prevention.  Anyone with a diagnosis is seen as an example of failure to prevent illness.  This position is firmly held by a colleague. Her point of view fails to take into account the fact that, due…

Controversy continues regarding the impact of prevention on health care costs.  I understand that prevention was not properly quantified by the budget analysts assigned to score the health reform measure.  Thankfully, in Canada we do not have to condend with as much  skepticism.  So I was rather taken aback by an article from the Kaiser group.  Two (non-physicians of course) were making the case for prevention as a means of addressing health care costs.  It is a good try, but the authors do…

The accountable care organization regulations are out.  Our hospital retained the services of a legal firm to wade into the 450+ page document to prepare our own  list of worries for our legislative delegation on The Hill and various national organizations we pay a lot of money to make our case.  

The Accountable Care Forum is worth following over the next sixty days of the comment period, but there may be some bias built in given the sponsor.  However, they have been trolling the web…

My friends in Maine have been trying to help me understand how many Americans, who are against health reform, do not understand that they are against a law that they can benefit from in the short run.  This is the latest try at 'Educating Leona'.

I think this is from the Kaiser Health News Service…

This analysis examines the potential costs and savings that the health reform law may generate for state budgets, a topic of great interest at a time when states continue to struggle with tight budgets in the wake of the recession. The analysis  seeks to explain why recent state estimates of the likely impact of health reform on their budgets vary widely, and discusses the major expected sources of costs and savings as the new law is implemented.



It finds that there are many…

"Transfusion" by Clay Bennett   Chattanooga Times Free Press  2/11/11

I am not sure if this award refers to the most recent of the EPIC EMR systems. Colleagues who work for Kaiser Permanente are not that happy with their Epic product.  But it seems others are according to KLAS Enterprises-a HIT industry analysis firm.

 …

Attorney Mark Hall explains the 12/13/2010 court ruling that may mean the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate may be unconstitutional.

"In sum, there is consensus that the mandate is inextricably intertwined with the other insurance

by asking courts to strike the entire law rather than just the mandate. Thus, in appealing Judge…

The California Pan Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) recently released report on the topic of the primary care medical home. The report presents each of the benefits associated with this health services delivery model and offers an equity improvement recommendation for each benefit.

The report can be accessed at: http://www.cpehn.org/pdfs/Medical%20Homes.pdf

California is home to over 200 organizations that reflect characteristics of accountable care organizations. The large number of ACO-like practices make California an 'ACO ecosystem'. The Integrated Healthcare Association recently released a white paper that presents ten lessons learned from California's experience with a key element of health reform.…

At the center of health reform is the electronic health record-the central nervous system of health reform efforts. What will drive healthcare quality and cost reduction in the years ahead is the information captured, stored, retrieved, and analyzed to improve clinical outcomes for all patients.

This is not a policy post. It is a basic information post to put what we see taking place in healthcare in context for public health professionals, particularly those who work…

Passing health reform was a challenge, but implementation will be the hard part. Thankfully, there are a number of sites springing up to keep us up-to-date on how implementation is progressing. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health…

There are more detailed summaries of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) becoming available from a variety of sources. Foley & Hoag, a law firm, has a good detailed summary of the Act, as well as a number of summaries presenting the impact of the new health reform law on various sectors-pharma, medical devices, small employers, etc. The first link below is a PPoint presentation & the second will take you to the Foley & Hoag page with sector-focussed summaries.…

DHHS has a website dedicated to all things PPACA. It includes information for consumers & a bit of horn-blowing by the department. There are a number of sites that aim to report PPACA implementation developments from a variety of perspectives-HIT, Medicare, pharma, etc. Thus far healthreform.gov seems to be geared toward the public/consumer.

http://www.healthreform.gov/index.html

A report by John Halohan & Bowen_Garrett of the Urban Institute answers the question.

Abstract

"In this report the authors estimate that under the health reform bill passed by the Senate, the cost of uncompensated care will fall from $62.1 billion in 2009 to $46.6 billion in 2019. If no health reform is enacted, they project that uncompensated care would rise to between $107 and $141 billion in 2019. Over the six-year period of proposed health reform legislation, 2014–2019,…

Kaiser has a good summary of the law. It is 33 pages long, but that is an improvement over 2100+ pages.

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8061.pdf

I did not think a Marxist publication like Political Affairs Magazine would be more or less uncritical about the new healthcare reform law. The hospital and insurance industry have been given a gift of nearly 35,000 new patients & beneficiaries, respectively.

" A number of commentators have described the law as the biggest reversal of inequality in America since LBJ's Great Society program. We…

Canadians came back down to earth from the Olympic gold medal hockey win just in time to watch the weird spectacle of an entire political party reject a not-so-bad healthcare reform bill. Thomas Walkom of the Toronto had this to say:

"By any standard, this is a big government exercise. Congress is insisting that virtually all Americans buy health insurance. Then, through a complex system of subsidies and grants, it is having government pick up some of their costs. But…