Quality of Care

Recent Publications

Can Physicians and Health Care Purchasers Collaborate to Improve Quality? Mark Legnini and Laurie Rosenberg, 2000. Describes an alternative to the "consumer choice model" for quality improvement. This new alternative would rely on externally accountable QI programs that are collaborations between purchasers and providers of care. Physician organizations such as specialty societies or medical groups would design and administer outcomes-based quality improvement programs for their members. Purchasers could implement incentives to reward participating physicians for meeting the standards, such as designating them as preferred providers, lessening the bureaucratic burden (e.g., eliminating prior authorization), or providing higher levels of reimbursement. The process would create a feedback loop that has more promise of changing physician practice. The report is partially based on discussions at a meeting sponsored by ESRI at the Institute of Medicine in January 2000, which was funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Aventis Pharmaceuticals.The report is available in PDF format and can be viewed on-line or downloaded.

Report on Report Cards: Initiatives of Health Coalitions and State Government Employers to Report on Health Plan Performance and Use Financial Incentives, Vol. II Elliot K. Wicks, Jack A. Meyer, Lise S. Rybowski, and Michael J. Perry. Prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, April 1999. The second volume of a two-volume report on findings from a multi-year project conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute to investigate how health coalitions and state government employers are assessing the performance of health plans and reporting the results of these assessments to their employees to help them select health plans. Also available is a short document, Using Report Cards to Assess Health Plans, that summarizes our work, with particular attention to reporting the findings of practical use to employers that may wish to initiate a report card effort themselves. The summary documents are $5 each, and each of the longer reports are $20 each or $30 each for both. Discounts are available for multiple-copy purchases of any of the three documents. Send email request to esri@esresearch.org, or if you do not have email, call 202 833-8877 Ex.10.

Report on Report Cards: Initiatives of Health Coalitions and State Government Employers to Report on Health Plan Performance and Use Financial Incentives, Jack A. Meyer, Elliot K. Wicks, Lise S. Rybowski, and Michael J. Perry. Prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, March 1998. Focuses on the efforts of health coalitions, state employers, and a large employer to help employees make wiser decisions in choosing health plans by providing them with information on health plan performance. Also examines financial incentives used by these purchasers to motivate health plans to improve quality and other aspects of performance and to induce employees to be cost-sensitive and quality-conscious in choosing health plans. The Executive Summary is available on line in html format. The full report can be ordered from ESRI for $20; discounts are available for volume orders. Send email request to esri@esresearch.org, or if you do not have email, call 202 833-8877.

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