Guides/Reports
American Hospital Association guides and reports for members and the health care field.
Health care professionals whose focus is on patient safety are very familiar with these alarming and frequently cited statistics from the Institute of Medicine: medical errors result in the death of between 44,000 and 98,000 patients every year. Health care professionals whose focus is on…
The Affordable Care Act and state Medicaid reform efforts present opportunities to reengineer health care payment and delivery systems to promote higher performance. This opportunity will be squandered, however, unless Medicare and Medicaid work collaboratively to develop a common framework for…
Assisted living facilities allow residents to 'age in place' by adjusting their level of care and services to meet changing needs. For assisted living residents who are dying, hospice care can help facilitate their desire to stay out of hospitals or nursing homes. Commonwealth Fund–supported…
While there is broad agreement on the general concepts defining patient-centered medical homes, little is known about physician practices' on-the-ground experiences. In this Commonwealth Fund–supported study, researchers examined five practices engaged in efforts to become medical homes…
PowerPoint slides
Hospitals are on a never-ending journey of quality improvement—employing new technologies and techniques and research on what works, as well as continuously training new workers and meeting the needs of sicker patients.
Three hazards involve health IT system-related technologies While today's health technology advances provide countless new ways to improve patient care, some also create new opportunities for harm. And with the evolution of health care information technology systems such as electronic health…
Efforts to improve U.S. health care must include payment reforms that encourage greater efficiency and reduce waste. Over the past six years, 25 states have pursued changes in how their two major public insurance programs for low-income families—Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance…
For the last century, the major causes of disease and death among Americans have changed, shifting from predominantly communicable diseases spread by germs to chronic ailments. This shift has been accompanied by a deeper understanding about what keeps people healthy or leaves them vulnerable to…
For the last 15 years, public hospitals have pursued multiple strategies to help maintain financial viability without abandoning their mission to care for low-income people, according to findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change's site visits to 12 nationally representative…