The American journal of managed care
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This study used coarsened exact matching to assess the ability of the LACE+ index to predict adverse outcomes after plastic surgery. ⋯ The results of this study demonstrate that the LACE+ index may be suitable as a prediction model for patient outcomes in a plastic surgery population.
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Palliative and hospice care services produce immense benefits for patients living with serious illness and for their families. Due to the national shift toward value-based payment models, health systems and payers share a heightened awareness of the need to incorporate palliative and hospice services into their service mix for seriously ill patient populations. During the last decade, a tremendous amount of capital has been invested to better integrate information technology into healthcare. ⋯ Five pillars constitute a SIDE, and each one is critical to the success of the system. The 5 pillars of a SIDE are: Identification, Education, Engagement, Service Delivery, and Remote Monitoring. As information technology continues to evolve and becomes a part of the care delivery landscape, it is necessary to develop cohesive ecosystems that inform all parts of the serious illness patient experience and identifies patients for the right services, at the right time.
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Understanding variation in spending across organizations, rather than across geographic areas, is important because care is delivered by organizations and interventions increasingly focus on organizations. Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are particularly important to study given their incentives to reduce spending. Analyzing spending differences across ACOs may help identify cost savings opportunities. ⋯ By extending the variations literature to focus on ACOs, we illustrated that meaningful further savings opportunities exist both within and across markets.