Health services research
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Health services research · Dec 1998
ReviewIncreasing consolidation in healthcare markets: what are the antitrust policy implications?
To discuss the implications of the rapid transformation of the healthcare financing and delivery system for competition, social welfare, and antitrust policy. ⋯ Active enforcement of the antitrust laws is essential to ensure that competition in healthcare markets will lead to procompetitive, rather than anticompetitive effects. However, healthcare antitrust enforcement policy must be flexible enough to allow efficient new forms of organization and practice to emerge.
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Health services research · Oct 1998
ReviewImproving the quality of care for children in health systems.
To summarize the state of the art in quality improvement, review its application to care for children, and define the information that will be needed so that care for children can be further improved. ⋯ Research to understand better the general process of improvement will benefit improvement efforts for children. Research that builds the base of knowledge about best practices for children--effectiveness research--will also result in an enhanced capacity for improvement of those systems that care for children's health. Quality of care for children would be enhanced by targeted research examining ways both to foster improvement across segments of society, and to make recommendations for care more sensitive to children's development and environmental context. Research that supports incorporating the child's perspective into care is both uniquely challenging to perform and central to improving pediatric care.
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Health services research · Oct 1998
Improving the quality of healthcare for children: implementing the results of the AHSR research agenda conference.
To describe the rationale, development, content, and results of the AHSR-sponsored conference on developing a research agenda focused on improving the quality of care for children. ⋯ The proposed research agenda should be a national priority so that all Americans can be assured that children are receiving the best quality of care that the United States can provide.
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Health services research · Oct 1998
ReviewAssessing the quality of healthcare provided to children.
To present a conceptual framework for evaluating quality of care for children and adolescents, summarize the key issues related to developing measures to assess pediatric quality of care, examine some existing measures, and present evidence about their current level of performance. ⋯ Pediatric health services researchers and the organizations that fund this work need to focus on developing a set of quality assessment tools that will address several challenging issues. Working within the context of the conceptual framework presented, we draw several conclusions related to issues that should be considered in developing quality of care measures for children.
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Health services research · Aug 1998
Comparative StudyAnalysis, assessment, and presentation of risk-adjusted statewide obstetrical care data: the StORQS II study in Washington State. Statewide Obstetrics Review and Quality System.
To develop an effective, concise presentation of hospital-specific birth event and delivery-related complication rates, including significant deviations from expected rates calculated using risk-adjusted peer hospital data, for distribution to all Washington State hospitals with delivery services. ⋯ Readily available statistical methods and straightforward descriptive approaches allow accurate presentation of outcomes for both large and small institutions.