Care Without Coverage

Care Without Coverage
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2002-06-20
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309083435

Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

Health-Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination

Health-Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2018-04-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 030946921X

The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs that provide benefits based on disability: the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. This report analyzes health care utilizations as they relate to impairment severity and SSA's definition of disability. Health Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination identifies types of utilizations that might be good proxies for "listing-level" severity; that is, what represents an impairment, or combination of impairments, that are severe enough to prevent a person from doing any gainful activity, regardless of age, education, or work experience.

Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care

Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2020-01-30
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309493439

Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health was released in September 2019, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. Improving social conditions remains critical to improving health outcomes, and integrating social care into health care delivery is more relevant than ever in the context of the pandemic and increased strains placed on the U.S. health care system. The report and its related products ultimately aim to help improve health and health equity, during COVID-19 and beyond. The consistent and compelling evidence on how social determinants shape health has led to a growing recognition throughout the health care sector that improving health and health equity is likely to depend â€" at least in part â€" on mitigating adverse social determinants. This recognition has been bolstered by a shift in the health care sector towards value-based payment, which incentivizes improved health outcomes for persons and populations rather than service delivery alone. The combined result of these changes has been a growing emphasis on health care systems addressing patients' social risk factors and social needs with the aim of improving health outcomes. This may involve health care systems linking individual patients with government and community social services, but important questions need to be answered about when and how health care systems should integrate social care into their practices and what kinds of infrastructure are required to facilitate such activities. Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health examines the potential for integrating services addressing social needs and the social determinants of health into the delivery of health care to achieve better health outcomes. This report assesses approaches to social care integration currently being taken by health care providers and systems, and new or emerging approaches and opportunities; current roles in such integration by different disciplines and organizations, and new or emerging roles and types of providers; and current and emerging efforts to design health care systems to improve the nation's health and reduce health inequities.

Compendium of HHS Evaluation Studies

Compendium of HHS Evaluation Studies
Author: HHS Evaluation Documentation Center (U.S.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 742
Release: 1983
Genre:
ISBN:

Evaluated programs conducted under HHS. Arranged according to agency hierarchy. Entries give agency sponsor, project title, report title, performer, abstract, descriptors, status, availability, and other identifying information. Subject,sponsor, program indexes.

Evaluation of the Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Services

Evaluation of the Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Services
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 467
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309466601

Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.

Vital Signs

Vital Signs
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2015-08-26
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309324963

Thousands of measures are in use today to assess health and health care in the United States. Although many of these measures provide useful information, their usefulness in either gauging or guiding performance improvement in health and health care is seriously limited by their sheer number, as well as their lack of consistency, compatibility, reliability, focus, and organization. To achieve better health at lower cost, all stakeholders - including health professionals, payers, policy makers, and members of the public - must be alert to what matters most. What are the core measures that will yield the clearest understanding and focus on better health and well-being for Americans? Vital Signs explores the most important issues - healthier people, better quality care, affordable care, and engaged individuals and communities - and specifies a streamlined set of 15 core measures. These measures, if standardized and applied at national, state, local, and institutional levels across the country, will transform the effectiveness, efficiency, and burden of health measurement and help accelerate focus and progress on our highest health priorities. Vital Signs also describes the leadership and activities necessary to refine, apply, maintain, and revise the measures over time, as well as how they can improve the focus and utility of measures outside the core set. If health care is to become more effective and more efficient, sharper attention is required on the elements most important to health and health care. Vital Signs lays the groundwork for the adoption of core measures that, if systematically applied, will yield better health at a lower cost for all Americans.

The Continuum of Long-term Care

The Continuum of Long-term Care
Author: Connie Evashwick
Publisher: Cengage Learning
Total Pages: 482
Release: 1996
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

This vital text offers a conceptual framework for creating an ideal integrated continuum of care., as well as concrete information about the components of the continuum as they exist today.