Toward a National Health Care Survey
Toward a National Health Care Survey

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1992-02-01

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 0309046920

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The nation's health care system has changed dramatically and the country is debating further significant changes. Comprehensive information is needed to guide policymakers in understanding and evaluating the current problems and in formulating federal health care policy. This book contains an evaluation of the plan developed by the National Center for Health Statistics for restructuring its existing provider surveys. It identifies current and future data needed by researchers and policymakers to assess the effect of changes in financing, organization, and delivery of health care on access, quality, costs, and outcomes of care and determines the extent to which the design and content of the proposed survey can meet these data needs. The book goes beyond a simple review and recommends a design framework to develop a coordinated and integrated data system to gather information about people and their illness over time and to link this information to costs and health care outcomes.

Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System, Revision 3
Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System, Revision 3

Author: United Nations. Statistical Office

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13:

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The publication is an international standard on the design and operation of an efficient and accurate vital statistics system at national level. It provides guidelines on collection, compiling and disseminating vital statistics. More specifically it contains (a) basic principles for a vital statistics system; (b) uses of vital statistics and civil registration records; (c) topics to be covered in a vital statistics system; (d) sources of vital statistics and how they function; (e) quality assurance in the vital statistics system and (f) strategies in improving civil registration and vital statistics systems in countries. It also informs policy makers and the general public on the importance of vital statistics and hence further improving the vital statistics system.

Vital Signs
Vital Signs

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2015-08-26

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0309324963

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Thousands of measures are in use today to assess health and health care in the United States. Although many of these measures provide useful information, their usefulness in either gauging or guiding performance improvement in health and health care is seriously limited by their sheer number, as well as their lack of consistency, compatibility, reliability, focus, and organization. To achieve better health at lower cost, all stakeholders - including health professionals, payers, policy makers, and members of the public - must be alert to what matters most. What are the core measures that will yield the clearest understanding and focus on better health and well-being for Americans? Vital Signs explores the most important issues - healthier people, better quality care, affordable care, and engaged individuals and communities - and specifies a streamlined set of 15 core measures. These measures, if standardized and applied at national, state, local, and institutional levels across the country, will transform the effectiveness, efficiency, and burden of health measurement and help accelerate focus and progress on our highest health priorities. Vital Signs also describes the leadership and activities necessary to refine, apply, maintain, and revise the measures over time, as well as how they can improve the focus and utility of measures outside the core set. If health care is to become more effective and more efficient, sharper attention is required on the elements most important to health and health care. Vital Signs lays the groundwork for the adoption of core measures that, if systematically applied, will yield better health at a lower cost for all Americans.

Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes
Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes

Author: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality/AHRQ

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1587634333

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This User’s Guide is intended to support the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and quality evaluation of registries created to increase understanding of patient outcomes. For the purposes of this guide, a patient registry is an organized system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes. A registry database is a file (or files) derived from the registry. Although registries can serve many purposes, this guide focuses on registries created for one or more of the following purposes: to describe the natural history of disease, to determine clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of health care products and services, to measure or monitor safety and harm, and/or to measure quality of care. Registries are classified according to how their populations are defined. For example, product registries include patients who have been exposed to biopharmaceutical products or medical devices. Health services registries consist of patients who have had a common procedure, clinical encounter, or hospitalization. Disease or condition registries are defined by patients having the same diagnosis, such as cystic fibrosis or heart failure. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews.

Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule
Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2009-03-24

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0309124999

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In the realm of health care, privacy protections are needed to preserve patients' dignity and prevent possible harms. Ten years ago, to address these concerns as well as set guidelines for ethical health research, Congress called for a set of federal standards now known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule. In its 2009 report, Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Health Research and the Privacy of Health Information concludes that the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not protect privacy as well as it should, and that it impedes important health research.

Health, United States
Health, United States

Author: Office of Public Health and Science

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-27

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780160928567

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This annual report assesses the nation's health by presenting trends and current information on selected measures of morbidity, mortality, health care utilization and access, health risk factors, prevention, health insurance, and personal health care expenditures.

Making Data Talk
Making Data Talk

Author: David E. Nelson (M.D.)

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 019538153X

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The demand for health information continues to increase, but the ability of health professionals to provide it clearly remains variable. The aim of this book is (1) to summarize and synthesize research on the selection and presentation of data pertinent to public health, and (2) to provide practical suggestions, based on this research summary and synthesis, on how scientists and other public health practitioners can better communicate data to the public, policy makers, and the press in typical real-world situations. Because communication is complex and no one approach works for all audiences, the authors emphasize how to communicate data "better" (and in some instances, contrast this with how to communicate data "worse"), rather than attempting a cookbook approach. The book contains a wealth of case studies and other examples to illustrate major points, and actual situations whenever possible. Key principles and recommendations are summarized at the end of each chapter. This book will stimulate interest among public health practitioners, scholars, and students to more seriously consider ways they can understand and improve communication about data and other types of scientific information with the public, policy makers, and the press. Improved data communication will increase the chances that evidence-based scientific findings can play a greater role in improving the public's health.