Health affairs
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This study addresses the Institute of Medicine's recommendation that AHRQ use MEPS data to identify a set of priority conditions to inform efforts at improving quality of care. Using MEPS data we identify the fifteen most expensive conditions in the U. ⋯ Type-of-service and source-of-payment distributions varied considerably across this set of conditions. Our findings highlight some of the challenges likely to be encountered in efforts to reform the current system.
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Measures based on routinely collected data would be useful to examine the epidemiology of patient safety. Extending previous work, we established the face and consensual validity of twenty Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs). ⋯ The adjusted incidence of most PSIs was highest at urban teaching hospitals. The PSIs may be used in AHRQ's National Quality Report, while providers may use them to screen for preventable complications, target opportunities for improvement, and benchmark performance.
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The proportion of international medical graduates (IMGs) serving as primary care physicians in rural underserved areas (RUAs) has important policy implications. We analyzed the 2000 American Medical Association Masterfile and Area Resource File to calculate the percentage of primary care IMGs, relative to U. ⋯ We found that 2.1 percent of both primary care USMGs and IMGs were in RUAs, where USMGs were more likely to be family physicians but less likely to be internists or pediatricians. IMGs appear to have been no more likely than USMGs were to practice primary care in RUAs, but the distribution by specialty differs.