In addition to extending health insurance coverage, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 aims to improve quality of care and contain costs. To this end, the act allowed introduction of bundled payments for a range of services, proposed the creation of accountable care organizations (ACOs), and established the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test new care delivery and payment models. ...

INTRODUCTION Hypertension is a leading cause of stroke, coronary artery disease, heart attack, and heart and kidney failure in the United States, all of which contribute to the rising costs of health care. The Georgia Stroke and Heart Attack Prevention Program is an education and direct service program for low-income patients with hypertension. This project evaluated the cost-effectiveness of t...

CONTEXT Migration to the United States from Mexico is increasing every year. Mexican immigrants tend to be poor, uninsured, monolingual Spanish speakers without adequate access to appropriate medical care. As a further barrier, many are also undocumented. PURPOSE This article describes a program developed to improve access to health care among Mexican immigrants in northern Colorado. METHOD...

PROBLEM ADDRESSED The population is aging rapidly and there are implications for health care delivery in the face of few physicians specializing in care of the elderly (COE). OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM To train physicians wishing to provide COE services. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The COE program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton is an enhanced skills diploma program lasting 6 months to 1 year, w...

Demonstration Grant Program In February 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) awarded 10 grants, funding 18 States, to improve the quality of health care for children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Funded by the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA), the Quality Demonstration Grant Program aims to id...

The Wingecarribee Health Service (WHS) has developed a program of ambulatory care different from the commonly accepted models. The program provides a "whole service" approach to care, with integration of hospital, allied health and community services in partnership with other key stakeholders such as general practitioners (GPs) and non-government organisations (NGOs). It departs from the medica...

Objective and Participants: The authors examined the experiences of primary care providers participating in an integrated healthcare service between mental health and primary care in a university health center. In this program, behavioral health providers work collaboratively with primary care providers in the treatment of students. Participants consisted of the 10 primary care providers partic...

OBJECTIVE To describe an alternative model of psychiatric outpatient care for patients with mood and anxiety disorders (the Mood Disorders Association of British Columbia Psychiatric Urgent Care Program or the MDA Program) using group medical visits (GMV) and (or) email communications in lieu of individual follow-up appointments. METHOD Annual costs of the MDA Program were compared with avera...

T he commitment of Dalhousie University's faculty of dentistry to improving access to care is visible in the innovative and supportive partnerships among dentists, dental hygienists, academics, care providers, policy-makers and community members the faculty has established over the years. These partnerships are effective communities of practice that bring together a group of people who share a ...

background and objectives: the increasing pressure on health systems to improve quality of health care,require them to develop novel conceptual framework and indices aimed at evaluating decision variables in the contemporary complex community. customer quality is a newly introduced concept addressing capability of patients in contribution to healthcare process and cooperation with healthcare pr...