{"title":"Changes in the structure, composition, and activity of hospital governing boards, 1989-1997: evidence from two national surveys.","authors":"J. Alexander, B. Weiner, R. Bogue","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00205","url":null,"abstract":"Hospital governance arrangements affect institutional policymaking and strategic decisions and can vary by such organizational attributes as ownership type/control, size, and system membership. A comparison of two national surveys shows how hospital governing boards changed in response to organizational and environmental pressures between 1989 and 1997. The magnitude and direction of changes in (1) board structure, composition, and selection; (2) CEO-board relations; and (3) board activity, evaluation, and compensation are examined for the population of hospitals and for different categories of hospitals. The findings suggest that hospital boards are engaging in selective rather than wholesale change to meet the simultaneous demands of a competitive market and traditional institutional orientations to community, the disenfranchised, and philanthropic service. Results also suggest parallel increases in collaboration between boards and CEOs and in board scrutiny of CEOs.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"526 1","pages":"253-79, IV-V"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73757079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Improving the quality of health care in the United Kingdom and the United States: a framework for change.","authors":"E. Ferlie, S. Shortell","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00206","url":null,"abstract":"Fueled by public incidents and growing evidence of deficiencies in care, concern over the quality and outcomes of care has increased in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Both countries have launched a number of initiatives to deal with these issues. These initiatives are unlikely to achieve their objectives without explicit consideration of the multilevel approach to change that includes the individual, group/team, organization, and larger environment/system level. Attention must be given to issues of leadership, culture, team development, and information technology at all levels. A number of contingent factors influence these efforts in both countries, which must each balance a number of tradeoffs between centralization and decentralization in efforts to sustain the impetus for quality improvement over time. The multilevel change framework and associated properties provide a framework for assessing progress along the journey.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"34 1","pages":"281-315"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80283640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theory and practice in the design of physician payment incentives.","authors":"James C. Robinson","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00202","url":null,"abstract":"Combining the economic literature on principal-agent relationships with examples of marketplace innovations allows analysis of the evolution of methods for paying physicians. Agency theory and the economic principles of performance-based compensation are applied in the context of imperfect information, risk aversion, multiple interrelated tasks, and team production efficiencies. Fee-for-service and capitation are flawed methods of motivating physicians to achieve specific goals. Payment innovations that blend elements of fee-for-service, capitation, and case rates can preserve the advantages and attenuate the disadvantages of each. These innovations include capitation with fee-for-service carve-outs, department budgets with individual fee-for-service or \"contact\" capitation, and case rates for defined episodes of illness. The context within which payment incentives are embedded, includes such non-price mechanisms as screening and monitoring and such organizational relationships as employment and ownership. The analysis has implications for health services research and public policy with respect to physician payment incentives.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"62 1","pages":"149-77, III"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76513330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Partnership synergy: a practical framework for studying and strengthening the collaborative advantage.","authors":"R. Lasker, E. Weiss, Rebecca Miller","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00203","url":null,"abstract":"The substantial interest and investment in health partnerships in the United States is based on the assumption that collaboration is more effective in achieving health and health system goals than efforts carried out by single agents. A clear conceptualization of the mechanism that accounts for the collaborative advantage, and a way to measure it are needed to test this assumption and to strengthen the capacity of partnerships to realize the full potential of collaboration. The mechanism that gives collaboration its unique advantage is synergy. A framework for operationalizing and assessing partnership synergy, and for identifying its likely determinants, can be used to address critical policy, evaluation, and management issues related to collaboration.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"71 1","pages":"179-205, III-IV"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87815125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perceived outcomes of public health privatization: a national survey of local health department directors.","authors":"Christopher Keane, John Marx, Edmund M. Ricci","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00198","url":null,"abstract":"Almost three quarters of the nation's local health departments (LHDs) have privatized some services. About half of LHD directors who privatized services reported cost savings and half reported that privatization had facilitated their performance of the core public health functions. Expanded access to services was the most commonly reported positive outcome. Of those privatizing, over two-fifths of LHDs reported a resulting increase in time devoted to management. Yet, one-third of directors reported difficulty monitoring and controlling services that have been contracted out. Communicable disease services was cited most often as a service that should not be privatized. There is a pervasive concern that by contracting out services, health departments can lose the capacity to respond to disease outbreaks and other crises.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"32 1","pages":"115-37; 1 p preceding VI"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89684045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The managed care backlash: perceptions and rhetoric in health care policy and the potential for health care reform.","authors":"David Mechanic","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00195","url":null,"abstract":"The focus on managed care and the managed care backlash divert attention from more important national health issues, such as insurance coverage and quality of care. The ongoing public debate often does not accurately convey the key issues or the relevant evidence. Important perceptions of reduced encounter time with physicians, limitations on physicians' ability to communicate options to patients, and blocked access to inpatient care, among others, are either incorrect or exaggerated. The public backlash reflects a lack of trust resulting from cost constraints, explicit rationing, and media coverage. Inevitable errors are now readily attributed to managed care practices and organizations. Some procedural consumer protections may help restore the eroding trust and refocus public discussion on more central issues.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"29 1","pages":"35-54; 2 p preceding VI"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90087373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Capitation and risk adjustment in health care financing: an international progress report.","authors":"N. Rice, Peter C. Smith","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00197","url":null,"abstract":"In every system of health care, capitation payments have become the accepted tool used by health care purchasers in much of the developed world to determine prospective budgets. The policy prescription of capitation is perceived to address both equity objectives (of great importance in publicly funded systems of health care) and efficiency objectives (the dominant concern in competitive insurance markets). An examination of the current state of the art in 20 countries outside the United States in which health care capitation has been implemented confirms that capitation has assumed central importance within diverse systems of health care. In practice, however, the setting of capitation payments has been heavily constrained to date by poor data availability and unsatisfactory analytic methodology.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"4 1","pages":"81-113; 2 p preceding VI"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88860170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hospital restructuring and the work of registered nurses.","authors":"Barbara R. Norrish, T. Rundall","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00196","url":null,"abstract":"American hospitals have undergone three waves of organizational restructuring in the past two decades. These changes have had direct effects on a key set of employees--nurses. A review of the relevant literature to identify the ways in which hospital restructuring affects the work of registered nurses focuses on three important structural characteristics of nursing work: nurses' work roles, workload, and control of work. The review concludes that the impact of restructuring on each of the characteristics affects nurses' satisfaction with their work and may also affect the quality of patient care. While much of the policy debate around restructuring focuses on the extent to which reductions in nurse staffing levels affects quality of care, it is important to examine not only changes in nurse staffing levels, but changes in the work performed by registered nurses, as well.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"3 1","pages":"55-79; 2 p preceding VI"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84200386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas M. Wickizer, Gary M. Franklin, Roy Plaeger-Brockway, Robert Mootz
{"title":"Improving the quality of workers' compensation health care delivery: the Washington State Occupational Health Services Project.","authors":"Thomas M. Wickizer, Gary M. Franklin, Roy Plaeger-Brockway, Robert Mootz","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00194","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00194","url":null,"abstract":"This article has summarized research and policy activities undertaken in Washington State over the past several years to identify the key problems that result in poor quality and excessive disability among injured workers, and the types of system and delivery changes that could best address these problems in order to improve the quality of occupational health care provided through the workers' compensation system. Our investigations have consistently pointed to the lack of coordination and integration of occupational health services as having major adverse effects on quality and health outcomes for workers' compensation. The Managed Care Pilot Project, a delivery system intervention, focused on making changes in how care is organized and delivered to injured workers. That project demonstrated robust improvements in disability reduction; however, worker satisfaction suffered. Our current quality improvement initiative, developed through the Occupational Health Services Project, synthesizes what was learned from the MCP and other pilot studies to make delivery system improvements. This initiative seeks to develop provider incentives and clinical management processes that will improve outcomes and reduce the burden of disability on injured workers. Fundamental to this approach are simultaneously preserving workers' right to choose their own physician and maintaining flexibility in the provision of individualized care based on clinical need and progress. The OHS project then will be a \"real world\" test to determine if aligning provider incentives and giving physicians the tools they need to optimize occupational health delivery can demonstrate sustainable reduction in disability and improvements in patient and employer satisfaction. Critical to the success of this initiative will be our ability to: (1) enhance the occupational health care management skills and expertise of physicians who treat injured workers by establishing community-based Centers of Occupational Health and Education; (2) design feasible methods of monitoring patient outcomes and satisfaction with the centers and with the providers working with them in order to assess their effectiveness and value; (3) establish incentives for improved outcomes and worker and employer satisfaction through formal agreements with the centers and providers; and (4) develop quality indicators for the three targeted conditions (low back sprain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and fractures) that serve as the basis for both quality improvement processes and performance-based contracting. What lessons or insights does our experience offer thus far? The primary lesson is the importance of making effective partnerships and collaborations. Our policy and research activities have benefited significantly from the positive relationship the DLI established with the practice community through the Washington State Medical and Chiropractic Associations and from the DLI's close association with the Healthcare Subcommittee of","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"34 1","pages":"5-33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79658876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Managing patient trust in managed care.","authors":"H. Davies, T. Rundall","doi":"10.1111/1468-0009.00187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00187","url":null,"abstract":"Patient trust has been identified as an important element in the patient-physician relationship. However, common features of managed care, such as risk-sharing, utilization review, and limitations on benefits, may erode the traditionally high trust that patients have in their physicians. High trust is not always justified; rather, an optimal level of trust arises from the level of interdependence between patients and physicians. This analysis of the interrelationship between patient-physician trust and some of the key facets of managed care has important implications for managed care. A return to high levels of trust may be impracticable, and new strategies for balancing trust-building efforts by caregivers with checking mechanisms accessible to patients are recommended.","PeriodicalId":78777,"journal":{"name":"The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly","volume":"3 1","pages":"609-24, iv-v"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2000-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78419615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}