Health Affairs May/June Issue Released Today, Compares Health Approached Among Countries

The table of contents and brief summaries from the May/June issue of Health Affairs, available as of today, is presented below:

• Cross-National Comparisons
  • "The Public Versus the World Health Organization on Health System Performance" -- Are experts or the public better qualified to judge health care systems?
  • "Perspective: People's Experiences Versus People's Expectations" -- WHO researchers write that satisfaction measures are influenced by expectations.
  • "Technical Change Around the World: Evidence from Heart Attack Care" -- "Supply side" incentives to decrease health spending are linked to use of costly treatments.
  • "Nurses' Report on Hospital Care in Five Countries" -- Structure of nurses' work puts them among least satisfied workers (see story 1).
• Quality of Care
  • "Improving Quality, Minimizing Error: Making it Happen" -- A five-point plan .
  • "Keeping Quality on the Policy Agenda" -- Why quality is everyone's problem.
• Prescription Drugs
  • "Pharmaceutical Cost Control in Canada: Does it Work?" -- Drug expenditures continue to rise despite some success of price controls.
  • "A Cost-Effectiveness Approach to Drug Subsidy and Pricing in Australia" -- While economic analyses of drugs have created greater efficiency and access, costs continue to rise at unsustainable rates.
• Health Tracking
  • "Marketwatch: For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Health Plans Participating in Medicaid" -- study explains that for-profit ownership should not be banned.
  • "Marketwatch: Beyond Managed Long Term Care: Paying for Home Care Based on Risk of Adverse Outcomes" -- A new budget model to direct resources where most needed.
  • "Trends: Corporate Health Care Purchasing Among Fortune 500 Firms" -- What is the next move for corporations to cut costs?
  • "Trends: Medicare Home Health Before and After the BBA" -- What is the effect of decline in home health use and spending on beneficiaries?
  • "From The Field: Is the Informed-Choice Policy Approach Appropriate for Medicare Beneficiaries?" -- More than 50% of beneficiaries have trouble using comparative heath plan information.
  • "From the Field: Providing Care at the End of Life: Do Medicare Rules Impede Good Care?" -- A study of providers reveals shortcomings.
• Narrative Matters
  • "La Promotora" -- Connecting disenfranchised residents along the Mexican border to the U.S health care system.
• Datawatch
  • "Comparing Health System Performance in OECD Countries" -- Using cross-national comparisons to determine efficacy of greater health spending.
  • "Physicians' Views on Quality of Care: A Five-Country Comparison" -- U.S. physicians face unique problems.
  • "Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Nursing" -- Lack of diversity is caused by gaps in educational attainment.
• Web Exclusive
  • "A Flexible Benefits Tax Credit for Health Insurance and More" -- Benefiting the uninsured, and all Americans. The full text of this article is available at http://healthaffairs.org/2003Etheredge.pdf. Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the article.