Briefs Examine CHIP Performance Bonus Payments, Eligibility Requirements; Paper Examines Public-Private Patient-Safety Alliance

• "CHIP TIPS: Medicaid Performance Bonus," Kaiser Family Foundation: The brief examines the new "performance bonus," which is designed to help states cover the added costs that result when states are very successful in enrolling eligible children in Medicaid above target levels specified in the CHIP Reauthorization Act. The brief is the first in a new series of implementation briefs that will examine opportunities for covering children following the reauthorization and expansion of CHIP in February. The series is jointly produced by the Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Center for Children and Families at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. A second brief, titled "CHIP TIPS: Medicaid Performance Bonus '5 of 8' Requirements," explains the requirements that states must meet to receive the bonus payments (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 4/6).
  
  
• "Reducing Health Care Hazards: Lessons From the Commercial Aviation Safety Team," Health Affairs: In the paper, patient safety expert Peter Pronovost and colleagues examine how the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, a public-private alliance, has greatly improved aviation safety and could be a model for a health care alliance that could reduce medical errors. Pronovost and colleagues are working to develop a health care counterpart to CAST, called the Public Private Partnership to Promote Patient Safety, or P5S. The alliance, funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is working to refine plans for the governance, processes and finances of P5S. Current stakeholders and participants in P5S include the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, FDA, the Joint Commission, the ECRI Institute and more than 15 large health systems (Health Affairs release, 4/7).