Patient Concerns Not Compromised When Practices Switch Ownership From Physicians to Systems

AHRQ Stats: Cost of Hospital Stays for Kidney Failure

The cost for a hospital stay in 2014 involving acute kidney failure averaged $19,200, nearly twice the $9,900 average cost for stays not involving kidney failure. (Source: AHRQ, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #231: Acute Renal Failure Hospitalizations, 2005-2014.)

Today's Headlines:

• Patient Concerns Not Compromised When Practices Switch Ownership From Physicians to Systems.
• Study Finds Wellness Coordinators Improve Rural Preventive Health Care.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• New Research and Evidence From AHRQ.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

Patient Concerns Not Compromised When Practices Switch Ownership From Physicians to Systems

Physician-owned practices that switch to ownership by a hospital, health care system or insurance company do not become significantly less responsive to patient concerns, according to an AHRQ-funded study in Health Services Research. Researchers collected data from three nationally representative surveys of about 900 physician organizations. Forty-minute interviews were conducted with medical directors, presidents or chief executive officers. The study found that ownership transitions may, in fact, modestly increase practices' responsiveness to patient concerns. Researchers concluded the findings may have important implications related to implementation of the Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015, which established value-based payment incentives and quality of care targets. This research was funded by AHRQ’s Comparative Health System Performance Initiative, which studies how health care delivery systems promote evidence-based practices and patient-centered outcomes research in delivering care. Access the abstract.

Study Finds Wellness Coordinators Improve Rural Preventive Health Care

Preventive health services among Oklahoma residents in a rural county increased significantly when wellness coordinators working with primary care practices, the county health department, the county hospital and a health information exchange organization contacted county residents to help arrange for them to receive evidence-based preventive services, according to an AHRQ-funded study. The coordinators used a wellness registry developed from electronic medical records to flag gaps in patients’ preventive care, track outreach efforts and document the delivery of preventive services. Among about 5,000 patients who received calls from wellness coordinators, the delivery of 10 selected preventive services improved about 35 percent. Access the abstract of the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

Highlights From AHRQ's Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Diagnostic assessment of deep learning algorithms for detection of lymph node metastases in women with breast cancer.
• Promising practices for improving hospital patient safety culture.
• Association of household opioid availability and prescription opioid initiation among household members.

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

• Effectiveness and Safety of Bronchial Thermoplasty in Management of Asthma.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Spending carveouts substantially improve the accuracy of performance measurement in shared savings arrangements: findings from simulation analysis of Medicaid ACOs. DeLia D. Inquiry 2017 Jan 1;54:46958017734047. Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

Implementing antimicrobial stewardship in long-term care settings: an integrative review using a human factors approach. Katz MJ, Gurses AP, Tamma PD, et al. Clin Infect Dis 2017 Nov 13;65(11):1943-51. Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

Assigning responsibility to close the loop on radiology test results. Kwan JL, Singh H. Diagnosis (Berl) 2017 Sep;4(3):173-7. Epub 2017 Jun 15. Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

Cardiac rehabilitation and readmissions after heart transplantation. Bachmann JM, Shah AS, Duncan MS, et al. J Heart Lung Transplant 2017 May 23. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

A family-centered rounds checklist, family engagement, and patient safety: a randomized trial. Cox ED, Jacobsohn GC, Rajamanickam VP, et al. Pediatrics 2017 May;139(5). Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

Impact of programs to reduce antipsychotic and anticholinergic use in nursing homes. Carnahan RM, Brown GD, Letuchy EM, et al. Alzheimers Dement (N Y) 2017 Mar 6;3(4):553-61. eCollection 2017 Nov. Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

Evaluation of the association between Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPS) measures and catheter-associated infections: results of two national collaboratives. Meddings J, Reichert H, Greene MT, et al. BMJ Qual Saf 2017 Mar;26(3):226-35. Epub 2016 May 24. Access the abstract on PubMed^®.

Factors associated with the receipt of antimicrobials among chronic hemodialysis patients. Snyder GM, Patel PR, Kallen AJ, et al. Am J Infect Control 2016 Nov 1;44(11):1269-74. Epub 2016 May 13. Access the abstract on PubMed^®.