Introduction: Not only is there no comparable information on home care available from the newest EU member states, but information from the other 15 is old. Furthermore, as European countries have implemented health care reforms over the past decade, updating is needed. Description of policy practice: The EURHOMAP project (Mapping professional home care in Europe) aims to describe and compare t...

OBJECTIVES This report presents national estimates on home health care patients and discharged hospice care patients. Information on characteristics, length of service, medical diagnoses, functional limitations, service use, advance care planning, and emergent and hospital care use are presented for home health care patients and hospice care discharges. A comparison of selected characteristics ...

OBJECTIVE Although the medical home is promoted by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Affordable Care Act, its impact on children without special health care needs is unknown. We examined whether the medical home is associated with beneficial health care utilization and health-promoting behaviors in this population. METHODS This study was a secondary data analysis of the 2003 National...

Prior to the enactment of the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) in 1997, home health care was among the fastest growing areas of Medicare. Between 1990 and 1996, Medicare home health expenditures grew at an annual rate of 29 percent. Much of the growth in home care expenditures was fueled by the cost-based system under which home health agencies were reimbursed at the time. To curtail this growth, the ...

One recommendation to states and communities from key stakeholders in the 1997 Impact Analysis was to include both acute and extended care services in managed care reforms. (For purposes of this study, “acute care” is defined as brief, short-term treatment with, in some cases, limited intermediate care also provided, and “extended care” is defined as care extending beyond the actute care stabil...

This variability in the clinical expression of asthma and response to therapy has an impact on patients’ symptoms, clinical outcomes, and health care costs. Fewer than 20% of patients with poorly controlled asthma account for almost 80% of direct expenditures for asthma care.8 Unfortunately, identifying these frequent users of health plan resources is a daunting task, because data must be avail...

Managed care is becoming the dominant form of health care delivery and financing in the United States, necessitating changes in pediatric education. This transition is redefining the questions of what needs to be taught, who should be teaching it, where it should be taught, and how to pay for this education. We performed a literature review and examined reports from policy and professional grou...