JAMA Articles Discuss Health Care Waste, Electronic Health Records; Tutorial Analyzes Public Opinion of Health Care in Presidential Election

• "From Waste to Value in Health Care," Journal of the American Medical Association: In the JAMA commentary, Thomas Boat of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and colleagues explore how the U.S. health care system can eliminate actions in its day-to-day delivery of health care that increase costs and create extra work but do not improve health outcomes. According to the authors, waste accounts for 30% to 50% of health care spending, and research is needed to identify quality improvement efforts that will lead to more coordination among everyone involved in health care delivery (Boat et al., JAMA, 2/6).
  
  
• "Groups Push Physicians and Patients To Embrace Electronic Health Records," JAMA: The perspective by Tracy Hampton discusses how government and not-for-profit organizations, as well as technology groups such as Google and Microsoft, are attempting to speed up the adoption of EHRs among hospitals, physicians and patients despite existing concerns, including affordability and privacy. According to Hampton, the groups envision an EHR system that is easily accessible, increases efficiency, reduces costs and promotes standardization of care, but so far, only a minority of consumers are investing in the technology (Hampton, JAMA, 2/6).
  
  
• Public Opinion: Health Care and Election '08 Tutorial, Kaiser Family Foundation: In the narrated slide tutorial, Claudia Deane, associate director of public opinion and media research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, discusses public opinion data on health care and the 2008 presidential election based on regular surveys taken by the foundation throughout the campaign. Deane also examines public concerns about health care affordability and the public's views on policy approaches, as well as trends in what issues the public wants presidential candidates to talk about and how views vary by party identification (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 2/5).