BACKGROUND Black and Latino minorities have traditionally had poorer access to primary care than non-Latino Whites, but these patterns could change with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). To guide post-ACA efforts to address mental health service disparities, we used a nationally representative sample to characterize baseline race-, ethnicity-, and nativity-associated differences in mental health s...

BACKGROUND There is dearth of evidence on provider cost of contracted out services particularly for Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH). The evidence base is weak for policy makers to estimate resources required for scaling up contracting. This paper ascertains provider unit costs and expenditure distribution at contracted out government primary health centers to inform the development of optimal...

A profile of pediatric medical practice is developed using data on visits to officebased physicians collected during the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey in 1980 and 1981. Descriptive statistics highlight physician and practice characteristics, patient characteristics, and aspects of patient condition and management. The first group includes analyses of visit data according to the type a...

The pervasive nature of location-aware devices has enabled the collection of geospatial data for the provision of personalised services. Despite this, the extraction of meaningful user locations from temporally annotated geospatial data remains an open problem. Meaningful location extraction is typically considered to be a 2-step process, consisting of visit extraction and clustering. This pape...

To contain costs and increase incentives for efficient provision of care, prospective payment methods are being proposed for Medicare home health services. Although a shift to per episode payment is much discussed, the methods rely on the home health visit as a fundamental building block in setting rates and ceilings. Some propose setting fixed per visit prices in the interim until episode paym...

In Ontario, the 18-month well-baby visit is the last scheduled primary care visit before school entry. Recognizing the importance of this visit and the role that primary care plays in developmental surveillance, an Ontario expert panel recommended enhancing the 18-month visit. Their recommendations are based on evidence from multiple disciplines, which underscore the reality that the quality of...

AIM Research undertaken in order to assess possibilities of social network compensation amongst population supported with home care services adjusted to mentally ill needs. Analysis included scope of support functions, number of networks and its quality. METHOD The study group consisted of 105 mentally ill persons participating in home care services program. Research tools used were as follow...

BACKGROUND To explore changes in utilization patterns for general practice (GP) and hospital care of people living in deprived neighbourhoods when primary care providers work in a more coherent and coordinated manner by applying an integrated approach. METHODS We compared expected (based on consumption patterns of a health insurers' total population) and actual utilization patterns in a depri...

The purposes of this methodologic, descriptive, correlation study were to assess the reliability and validity of the Easley-Storfjell (ES) patient-classification instrument for home care, and determine to what extent it was useful in a large, hospital-based home health care setting. A model for home health care developed by the investigator was used. Interrater reliability and concurrent validi...