EDITORIAL

No abstract available for this article.     

Ranking of priorities in employees' reward and recognition schemes: from the perspective of UAE health care employees

A reward and recognition (RR) system is a tool widely applied by organizations to motivate their employees. Outstanding employees expect their effort to be acknowledged by the organization. However, the variety of rewards and recognitions systems used by organizations may be perceived differently by different employees. The diverse workforce structure in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) poses various challenges for organization managers. Managers need to implement the shrewd RR system which best fits their diverse workforce. This research studied how medical sector employees in the private and public health sector view the RR systems in the UAE. Two lists, comprising 26 major approaches to RR, were prepared and its items prioritized by taking inputs from 250 employees working in more than 30 varied public and private health care organizations in the UAE. The findings of the research are expected to provide guidelines for developing appropriate RR systems for organizations in general, and UAE health care organizations in particular.     

Progress of Ontario's Family Health Team model: a patient-centered medical home

Ontario's Family Health Team (FHT) model, implemented in 2005, may be North America's largest example of a patient-centered medical home. The model, based on multidisciplinary teams and an innovative incentive-based funding system, has been developed primarily from fee-for-service primary care practices. Nearly 2 million Ontarians are served by 170 FHTs. Preliminary observations suggest high satisfaction among patients, higher income and more gratification for family physicians, and trends for more medical students to select careers in family medicine. Popular demand is resulting in expansion to 200 FHTs. We describe the development, implementation, reimbursement plan, and current status of this multidisciplinary model, relating it to the principles of the patient-centered medical home. We also identify its potential to provide an understanding of many aspects of primary care.     

Improvements in Health Status after Massachusetts Health Care Reform

Context

Massachusetts enacted health care reform in 2006 to expand insurance coverage and improve access to health care. The objective of our study was to compare trends in health status and the use of ambulatory health services before and after the implementation of health reform in Massachusetts relative to that in other New England states.

Methods

We used a quasi-experimental design with data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from 2001 to 2011 to compare trends associated with health reform in Massachusetts relative to that in other New England states. We compared self-reported health and the use of preventive services using multivariate logistic regression with difference-in-differences analysis to account for temporal trends. We estimated predicted probabilities and changes in these probabilities to gauge the differential effects between Massachusetts and other New England states. Finally, we conducted subgroup analysis to assess the differential changes by income and race/ethnicity.

Findings

The sample included 345,211 adults aged eighteen to sixty-four. In comparing the periods before and after health care reform relative to those in other New England states, we found that Massachusetts residents reported greater improvements in general health (1.7%), physical health (1.3%), and mental health (1.5%). Massachusetts residents also reported significant relative increases in rates of Pap screening (2.3%), colonoscopy (5.5%), and cholesterol testing (1.4%). Adults in Massachusetts households that earned up to 300% of the federal poverty level gained more in health status than did those above that level, with differential changes ranging from 0.2% to 1.3%. Relative gains in health status were comparable among white, black, and Hispanic residents in Massachusetts.

Conclusions

Health care reform in Massachusetts was associated with improved health status and the greater use of some preventive services relative to those in other New England states, particularly among low-income households. These findings may stem from expanded insurance coverage as well as innovations in health care delivery that accelerated after health reform.     

The demand for private health care in the UK

Policy change has eroded the entitlement of UK residents to free state-provided health care, with a resulting rise in the use of the private sector. This paper examines the choice between public and private health care. It models the use of private health care as a function of its costs and benefits relative to state care and no care. The results indicate a difference between users of private care and other care, and the importance of past use as a predictor of current use. But they also show considerable movement between the public and private sectors, indicating a complex relationship in public and private sector use.     

From Triple to Quadruple Aim: Care of the Patient Requires Care of the Provider

The Triple Aim—enhancing patient experience, improving population health, and reducing costs—is widely accepted as a compass to optimize health system performance. Yet physicians and other members of the health care workforce report widespread burnout and dissatisfaction. Burnout is associated with lower patient satisfaction, reduced health outcomes, and it may increase costs. Burnout thus imperils the Triple Aim. This article recommends that the Triple Aim be expanded to a Quadruple Aim, adding the goal of improving the work life of health care providers, including clinicians and staff.     

挪威卫生服务体系概况及对我国的启示

本文通过对挪威卫生服务体系的发展脉络进行追溯,了解到挪威政府对初级卫生保健体系和专科卫生服务体系一直采取不同的管理模式,并随着人口结构、卫生服务需求的变化将初级卫生保健逐步交由自治市政府管理,而专科卫生服务则采取了市场化较强的半政府、半市场的组织管理模式,并由中央政府进行统筹。这样的管理结构从目前来看较好的解决了初级卫生服务供给不足和专科卫生服务效率低下的问题。     

The labour market costs of community care

This paper reports an empirical investigation into the influence of informal care responsibilities on the labour supply of women. The objective is to examine the argument that the UK policy of caring for the chronic sick 'in the community' involves a nontrivial opportunity cost in the form of the forgone labour supply of the informal carers upon which it relies. We find that informal carers who care for less than 20 h per week are, in fact, more likely to participate in the labour market, but tend to work for fewer hours per week than otherwise similar noncarers. Informal carers who care for 20 h or more a week are less likely to participate, but only slightly. However, when they do undertake formal employment, they tend to earn less per hour and work for fewer hours per week.     

Occupational health services for farmers

There are many unmet health needs in the farming community, needs that are peculiar to the agriculture industry. Health research and regulations to protect the safety of the farmer have lagged far behind those for other sectors of our economy. At a time when health needs are increasing, there is a decreasing availability of hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other health care personnel. The ability of the rural section to pay for these services is also declining. The evidence calls for a multifaceted solution, with improved cooperation and understanding on the part of the consumer as well as the provider. The regional health network is one system that may help solve some of these dilemmas.     

Organizational Leadership For Building Effective Health Care Teams

The movement toward accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes will increase with implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA will therefore give further impetus to the growing importance of teams in health care. Teams typically involve 2 or more people embedded in a larger social system who differentiate their roles, share common goals, interact with each other, and perform tasks affecting others. Multiple team types fit within this definition, and they all need support from leadership to succeed. Teams have been invoked as a necessary tool to address the needs of patients with multiple chronic conditions and to address medical workforce shortages. Invoking teams, however, is much easier than making them function effectively, so we need to consider the implications of the growing emphasis on teams. Although the ACA will spur team development, organizational leadership must use what we know now to train, support, and incentivize team function. Meanwhile, we must also advance research regarding teams in health care to give those leaders more evidence to guide their work.     

21世纪全面开展初级卫生保健的思考与建议

从我国当前的国力和国际经验来看,我国在21世纪仍然特别需要采取低成本、广覆盖与高产出的卫生发展战略,需要富有远见和创新精神的卫生制度设计。通过立法保障和普及初级卫生保健,保证城乡居民公平享有基本卫生服务,保障全体公民的基本健康权利,是解决当前广大群众“看病难、看病贵”问题的可行策略,是符合我国国情、尽快改善卫生公平性、控制医疗费用过快上涨和提高人民健康水平的最佳制度选择,也是推动卫生改革和体制创新的关键举措。建议通过立法构建我国21世纪初级卫生保健体系,将卫生工作的重点从医疗服务转到疾病预防,将卫生资源从过度的医院服务转向普及基层的初级卫生保健服务,并对相关的社会、环境、行为和心理等健康危险因素进行干预。在大力控制传染病、地方病的同时,尽快建立控制慢性非传染性疾病的能力,防止国家、社会和家庭在未来付出更高的健康损失和经济代价;建议我国未来的卫生服务大体上由“两层服务体系”提供,即初级卫生保健层次和转诊服务层次,逐步实现居民人人享有的“双重健康保障”,即:所有公民享有基本卫生服务和基本医疗保险。     

郴州农村妇女卫生保健意识及健康教育需求调查

目的:了解湖南省郴州市农村妇女卫生保健意识及其健康教育需求,为进一步提高健康教育质量提供依据。方法:结合预防医学本科生社会实践,组织大学生对郴州市保和乡326名农村妇女进行问卷调查。结果:大部分调查对象的卫生保健意识较差,近1年来,40.5%的妇女出现过生殖道感染症状;卫生保健意识主要与年龄、文化程度有关(P0.05);调查对象对健康教育的需求主要是儿童保健、常见妇科疾病预防和孕产期保健等方面的知识。结论:应针对不同年龄、不同文化层次的农村妇女进行相应的健康教育,健康教育的方式应多种多样。大学生组织的社会实践活动在农村妇女的健康促进工作中有着重要的作用。     

美国整合卫生保健主要做法及启示

随着人口老龄的快速发展、慢性病负担逐步加重,居民对综合、协调、连续、安全、可及的卫生保健服务需求日益增加。整合卫生保健有助于提高卫生保健服务的可及性、公平性、效率和患者满意度。文章梳理美国在整合卫生保健领域的做法,总结特点和成效,提出中国开展整合卫生保健的建议。     

Have out‐of‐pocket health care payments risen under free health care policy? The case of Sri Lanka

Compared to its neighbors, Sri Lanka performs well in terms of health. Health care is provided for free in the public sector, yet households' out‐of‐pocket health expenditures are steadily increasing. We explore whether this increase can be explained by supply shortages and insufficient public health care financing or whether it is rather the result of an income‐induced demand for supplementary and higher quality services from the private sector. We focus on total health care expenditures and health care expenditures for specific services such as expenses on private outpatient treatments and expenses on laboratory and other diagnostic services. Overall, we find little indication that limited supply of public health care per se pushes patients into the private sector. Yet income is identified as one key driver of rising health care expenditures, ie, as households get richer, they spend an increasing amount on private services suggesting a dissatisfaction with the quality offered by the public sector. Hence, quality improvements in the public sector seem to be necessary to ensure sustainability of the public health care sector. If the rich and the middle class increasingly opt out of public health care, the willingness to pay taxes to finance the free health care policy will certainly shrink.     

Primary care attributes and mortality: a national person-level study

PURPOSE

Research demonstrates an association between the geographic concentration of primary care clinicians and mortality in the area, but there is limited evidence of a mortality benefit of primary care at the individual patient level. We examined whether patient-reported access to selected primary care attributes, including some emphasized in the medical home literature, is associated with lower individual mortality risk.

METHODS

We analyzed data from 2000–2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey respondents aged 18 to 90 years (N = 52,241), linked to the National Death Index through 2006. A score was constructed from 5 yes/no items assessing whether the respondent’s usual source of care had 3 attributes: comprehensiveness, patient-centeredness, and enhanced access. Scores ranged from 0 to 1 (higher scores = more attributes). We examined the association between the primary care attributes score and mortality during up to 6 years of follow-up using Cox survival analysis, adjusted for social, demographic, and health-related characteristics.

RESULTS

Racial/ethnic minorities, poorer and less educated persons, individuals without private insurance, healthier persons, and residents of regions other than the Northeast reported less access to primary care attributes than others. The primary care attributes score was inversely associated with mortality (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.79; 95% confidence interval, 0.64–0.98; P = .03); supplementary analyses showed mortality decreased linearly with increasing score.

CONCLUSIONS

Greater reported patient access to selected primary care attributes was associated with lower mortality. The findings support the current interest in ensuring that patients have access to a medical home encompassing these attributes.     

A Taxonomy of Accountable Care Organizations for Policy and Practice

ObjectiveTo develop an exploratory taxonomy of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to describe and understand early ACO development and to provide a basis for technical assistance and future evaluation of performance.ConclusionsACOs can be characterized into three distinct clusters. The taxonomy provides a framework for assessing performance, for targeting technical assistance, and for diagnosing potential antitrust violations.