Rhode Island Blue Cross & Blue Shield Releases Results of Statewide Health Assessment Study
Rhode Island residents have more doctor and emergency room visits and enter nursing homes more often and at younger ages than do residents of other states, according to results from a yearlong study released Nov. 18, the Providence Journal reports. The $3 million Statewide Health Assessment Planning and Evaluation, or SHAPE, study was commissioned by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and conducted by research firms RAND and Booz Allen Hamilton to "forecast the state's health care needs." Researchers met each month with a 29-member committee of government, business, labor, education, hospital and primary care medicine representatives, for a total of approximately 50 hours. Researchers also examined the composition of the state's population and its health habits and compared them to "available health care resources" to project outcomes for 2006. Researchers found:
- "Young, working people" visit the doctor an average of 4.3 times per year, 43% higher than the national average. Such individuals also visit the state's emergency rooms more often than members of other age groups.
- As the state's population ages, hospitals will be "full or overcrowded," and the state will have a 1,600-bed shortage at its nursing homes by 2006.
- The state has a "higher than average" per-capita supply of doctors and should still have a sufficient number of physicians by 2006.
Gary Ahlquist, senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, said the study is "perhaps the most comprehensive information base ever assembled here," adding that the study was intended to uncover "pressure points" but not to "explain" them. Dr. Patricia Nolan, the state's health director and a member of the SHAPE committee, said, "What does the SHAPE study give us? It gives us better and more agreed upon data to make [health care] decisions." Addressing concerns that the study could have just been an "expensive way to promote Blue Cross' agenda," state Rep. Peter Ginaitt (D) said, "Blue Cross has stayed out of this. This is an independent study." Blue Cross President and CEO Ronald Battista said, "Our goal has been met -- get it out to the public and begin the dialogue. The last thing we want is for SHAPE to be a study that sits on a shelf somewhere" (Freyer, Providence Journal, 11/19).
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