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A Federal Perspective On Health Care Quality And Costs [September 30, 2008] College Enrollment Up 17 Percent Since 2000 [September 29, 2008] Release Date Changed Of NRC Assessment Of Research Doctoral Programs [September 26, 2008] ASAHP Election Results [September 25, 2008] Faculty Demographics And The Future Leadership Of Higher Education [September 24, 2008] College Learning For The New Global Century [September 23, 2008] Projections Of Education Statistics To 2017 [September 22, 2008] HHS Effort To Implement Electronic Health Records Fall Short [September 19, 2008] Primary Health Care And A Return To Alma-Ata [September 18, 2008] More Hospitals Offer Complementary And Alternative Medical Services [September 17, 2008] Graduate Enrollments In The U.S. [September 16, 2008] Dropout And Completion Rates In The United States [September 15, 2008] Retail Medical Clinics Attract Patients Who Lack Regular Health Care Providers [September 12, 2008] International Nurse Code Of Recruitment Released [September 11, 2008] Higher Education Provides Solutions For Our Health [September 10, 2008] Ph.D. Completion Rates Differ By Student Demographics [September 9, 2008] Recommendations For Leadership From Academic Health Centers Regarding A Data Sharing Culture [September 8, 2008] National Accreditation Forum On September 22 [September 5, 2008] Community Colleges [September 4, 2008] Consumerism In Health Care [September 3, 2008] Medical Tourism: Consumers In Search Of Value [September 2, 2008] Social Determinants Of Health [August 29, 2008] Income, Poverty, And Health Insurance Coverage In The U.S. [August 28, 2008] ACE Analysis Of New Higher Education Act [August 27, 2008] The Case For Evidence-Based Policy [August 26, 2008] More Americans Seeking Health Information, Especially On The Internet [August 25, 2008] President Bush Signs Higher Education Act Legislation Into Law [August 15, 2008] Financing the U.S. Health System: Issues And Options For Change [August 14, 2008] Evidence-Based Medicine And The Changing Nature Of Health Care [August 13, 2008] Behavioral Economics: Lessons From Retirement Research For Health Care And Beyond [August 12, 2008] Health Promotion And Disease Prevention Research Centers Funding [August 11, 2008] Building A Better Path From School To College And Careers [August 8, 2008] Rising Rates Of Chronic Health Conditions: What Can Be Done? [August 7, 2008] Descriptive Summary Of 2003-04 Beginning Postsecondary Students: Three Years Later [August 6, 2008] Medicare Program Vulnerable To Fraud [August 5, 2008] Analysis of BLS Health Occupation Projections [August 4, 2008] Medical Cost Trends For 2009 [August 1, 2008] A Federal Perspective On Health Care Quality And Costs Peter Orszag, Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), made a presentation at Stanford University earlier this month. Part of his focus was on the Medicare program and variations among medical centers around the U.S. in spending and the relationship between quality of care and spending. He also suggested behavioral pathways to increasing efficiency in health care. The presentation is in the form of slides and can be accessed at http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9748/09-16-2008-Stanford.pdf . College Enrollment Up 17 Percent Since 2000 Enrollment in two- and four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. reached 20.5 million in 2006, up three million since 2000. This included 17.1 million undergraduates and 3.4 million students in graduate or professional schools. These statistics are from the U.S. Census Bureau's School Enrollment in the United States: 2006 , a report that describes the characteristics of the nation's 79 million students in 2006. This is the first school enrollment report from the Census Bureau to use data from both the Current Population Survey (on which previous reports have been based) and the American Community Survey. Incorporating these data results in new state-by-state comparisons of enrollment characteristics, while preserving historical comparisons. In 2006, there were more students in college and high school, but fewer in nursery school, kindergarten and elementary school, than in 2000. This change reflects the composition of school enrollment by age in the United States for that time period. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-559.pdf. Release Date Changed Of NRC Assessment Of Research Doctoral Programs The release schedule for reports for the NRC Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs has changed. The issuance of the Methodology Guide is now estimated for late October or early November. The release schedule for the project report and its database will be announced at a later date. It has been asked whether the study will include ratings and rankings. A simple answer is: yes, it is required, but the overall quality of a doctoral program is multi-dimensional and a strictly ordered ranking misrepresents the varieties of ways that programs achieve quality as well as the varieties of attributes that potential students seek in a doctoral program. Consequently, the rating task will be approached in a variety of ways. A list of participating institutions is posted and can be accessed by clicking http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/Participating_Institutions.html.The Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions (ASAHP) recently conducted its 2008 election. The results are as follows: Gregory H. Frazer , Ph.D., was chosen as President-Elect. He will serve in that position for one-year, followed by two years as President and one-year as Immediate Past President. He is Dean of the John G. Rangos, Sr. School of Health Sciences at Duquesne University. Randall S. Lambrecht , Ph.D., was elected Treasurer for a two-year term. He is the Dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Barry S. Eckert , Ph.D., was elected to the Board of Directors for a three-year term. He is Dean of the School of Health Professions at Long Island University-Brooklyn P. Kevin Rudeen , Ph.D., was elected to the Board of Directors for a three-year term. He is Dean of the College of Allied Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Bethany A. Krom , M.A., M.B.A., Assistant Dean at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, was elected for a two-year term on the Nominations & Elections Committee. Edward R. O'Connor , Ph.D., Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Quinnipiac University, was elected for a two-year term on the Nominations & Elections Committee. Sharon R. Stewart , Ed.D., Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky, was elected for a two-year term on the Nominations & Elections Committee. Terms of office in all these position become effective on November 1, immediately following the ASAHP Annual Conference. Faculty Demographics And The Future Leadership Of Higher Education An aging professoriate, a growing reliance on part-time and non-tenured faculty, and students who complete their PhDs and become faculty later in life are all factors that contribute to a scarcity of young permanent faculty who will have the time and opportunity to advance up the traditional career ladder to a college presidency, a new issue brief by the American Council on Education (ACE) concludes. Too Many Rungs on the Ladder? Faculty Demographics and the Future Leadership of Higher Education examines why so few young adults are in the professoriate and discusses the implications for the future of the nation's colleges and universities. The report, which analyzes data from the Department of Education's 2003-04 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty, suggests that the longstanding career ladder to top administrative posts in academia may have too many steps given these shifting demographic realities. The Issue Brief can be accessed by clicking http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=28763 . College Learning For The New Global Century A new report from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) entitled, Learning for the New Global Century is a about the aims and outcomes of a twenty-first-century college education. It is also a report about the promises we need to make—and keep—to all students who aspire to a college education, especially to those for whom college is a route, perhaps the only possible route, to a better future. With college education more important than ever before, both to individual opportunity and to American prosperity, policy attention has turned to a new set of priorities: the expansion of access, the reduction of costs, and accountability for student success. These issues are important, but something equally important has been left off the table. Across all the discussion of access, affordability, and even accountability, there has been a near-total public and policy silence about what contemporary college graduates need to know and be able to do . This report fills that void. It builds from the recognition, already widely shared, that in a demanding economic and international environment, Americans will need further learning beyond high school. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/GlobalCentury_ExecSum_3.pdf. Projections Of Education Statistics To 2017 HHS Effort To Implement Electronic Health Records Fall Short Although advances in information technology (IT) can improve the quality and other aspects of health care, the electronic storage and exchange of personal health information introduces risks to the privacy of that information. In January 2007, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported on the status of efforts by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure the privacy of personal health information exchanged within a nationwide health information network. GAO recommended that HHS define and implement an overall privacy approach for protecting that information. For a more recent report, GAO was asked to provide an update on HHS's efforts to address the January 2007 recommendation. To do so, GAO analyzed relevant HHS documents that described the department's privacy-related health IT activities. While these steps contribute to an overall privacy approach, they have fallen short of fully implementing GAO's recommendation. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081138.pdf . Primary Health Care And A Return To Alma-Ata Recent trends have clarified the relevance of primary health care in ways that could not have been imagined when the Declaration of Alma-Ata was adopted 30 years ago. Primary health care increasingly looks like a smart way to place health development back on track, according to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Margaret Chan in an article written for The Lancet . The article can be accessed by clicking http://www.who.int/dg/20080915/en/index.html . More Hospitals Offer Complementary And Alternative Medical Services A growing proportion of hospitals is responding to patient demand and integrating complementary and alternative medicine services with conventional services, according to a survey released by the American Hospital Association's Health Forum subsidiary. More than 37% of responding hospitals offered one or more CAM therapies, up from 26.5% in 2005. Eighty-four percent cited patient demand as their primary rationale for offering CAM services while 67% cited clinical effectiveness. CAM can include acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, diet and lifestyle changes, herbal medicine, massage therapy and other interventions. Graduate Enrollments In The U.S. The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) reported today that the number of doctorates conferred by U.S. graduate schools rose 9% between 2006 and 2007, compared to 2% average annual growth over the past decade. The survey report, Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1997 to 2007 , reveals that five broad fields of study increased more than 10% in one year, including health sciences (up 18%), engineering (14%), and biological sciences (11%). The number of doctorates awarded to women rose 10% in 2007, compared to 8% growth among men. Over the 1997-2007 period, there was 4% average annual growth in doctorates to women versus 1% for men. The ten-year trend also shows that graduate enrollment of U.S. minority groups grew much faster than that of White, non-Hispanic students. There was 8% average annual growth for African-Americans, 7% for Hispanic students, 6% for Native Americans, and 4% for students of Asian/Pacific Island backgrounds, compared to 1% for White students. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.cgsnet.org/portals/0/pdf/R_ED2007.pdf . Dropout And Completion Rates In The United States A new report builds upon a series of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports on high school dropout and completion rates that began in 1988. It presents estimates of rates for 2006 and provides data about trends in dropout and completion rates over the last three decades (1972-2006), including characteristics of dropouts and completers in these years. Report highlights include: The averaged freshman graduation rate (AFGR), which provides an estimate of the percentage of public high school students who graduate with a regular diploma four years after starting 9th grade, was 74.7 percent for the class of 2005. Students living in low-income families were approximately four times more likely to drop out of high school between 2005 and 2006 than were students living in high-income families. In October 2006, approximately 3.5 million civilian non-institutionalized 16- through 24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school and had not earned a high school diploma or alternative credential. The report can be accessed by clicking http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008053.pdf . Retail Medical Clinics Attract Patients Who Lack Have Regular Health Care Providers Retail medical clinics located in pharmacies and other stores typically attract insured and uninsured patients who are seeking help for a small group of easy-to-treat illnesses or preventive care and do not otherwise have a regular health care provider, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The RAND Health study is the first to examine the types of patients who use the retail clinics and the health care services delivered by the clinics, which are growing in number and popularity. The findings are published in the September/October of the journal Health Affairs . Among the findings are:
Health Affairs is on the Web at http://www.healthaffairs.org/1500_about_journal.php . International Nurse Code Of Recruitment Released AcademyHealth, along with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and a taskforce, has released the Voluntary Code of Ethical Conduct for the Recruitment of Foreign-Educated Nurses to the United States (the Code) and its Web site, www.fairinternationalrecruitment.org. The Code, designed to increase transparency and accountability throughout the process of international recruitment and ensure adequate orientation for foreign-educated nurses (FENs), also provides guidance on ways to ensure recruitment is not harmful to source countries. The code can be accessed by clicking http://www.fairinternationalrecruitment.org/code.htm . Higher Education Provides Solutions For Our Health At colleges and universities across the country, students and faculty are engaged in research and training that have the potential to change–and save–lives. The American Council on Education (ACE) is highlighting these efforts on its new Solutions for Our Health web site. The new site, part of ACE's Solutions for Our Future campaign, will highlight work being done at colleges and universities to improve and advance health care. The site is interactive, featuring rotating quiz questions about health care and medical research. The website can be accessed by clicking http://www.solutionsforourfuture.org/site/PageServer?pagename=health_homepage . Ph.D. Completion Rates Differ By Student Demographics Results from the largest analysis to date of data on doctoral students, released today by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), indicate that degree completion rates vary substantially by gender, race/ethnicity, and citizenship. The study from CGS's Ph.D. Completion Project shows that, after 10 years, the cumulative completion rates for men, whites, and international students are higher than those for women, other U.S. racial/ethnic groups, and domestic students, respectively. However, the study determines that annual completion rates for women and racial/ethnic minorities are higher than for men and white students in years eight through ten. Another notable finding is that African Americans complete at a higher cumulative rate in Life Sciences than in other fields, while all other racial/ethnic groups have the highest rate in Engineering. The publication may be obtained by clicking http://www.cgsnet.org/Default.aspx?tabid=79&CategoryID=1&Category2ID=3&List=0&catpageindex=2&Level=2&ProductID=90 . Recommendations For Leadership From Academic Health Centers Regarding A Data Sharing Culture According to an article published on September 2 by the Public Library of Science (PloS), the predominant benefit of data sharing is accelerated scientific progress. Advances are clearly valuable to an AHC when translated into improved patient outcomes, reduced research costs, and decreased time in moving discoveries from the bench to the bedside. Of more immediate benefit to AHCs and their researchers, sharing data increases the visibility and relevance of research output. Sharing data generates opportunities for additional publications through collaboration, and may increase the citation rate of primary publications. Since publication history and citation impact are often considered in future funding decisions, these benefits are likely to accelerate research programs, and thus enhance the reputation of the academic institutions. Data sharing also can benefit an AHC in its roles of educator and employer. Health care professionals trained in clinical informatics benefit from exposure to real-world data. By embracing data sharing goals, an AHC becomes more appealing to cutting-edge researchers, and thereby more able to recruit the talent required for future successes. Finally, the widespread adoption of a data sharing culture needs leaders, and thus provides an opportunity for AHCs to demonstrate excellence. Academic health centers (AHCs) have a critical role in enabling, encouraging, and rewarding data sharing. The leaders of medical schools and academic-affiliated hospitals can play a unique role in supporting this transformation of the research enterprise. The article can be accessed by clicking http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050183 . National Accreditation Forum On September 22 The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) is conducting a National Accreditation Forum in Washington, DC on September 22 to initiate a dialogue among leaders in accreditation, higher education, the policy community, and the public on the future of accreditation. The intent is to develop an agenda to enhance public confidence in accreditation and address core issues and concerns at the heart of the accreditation-federal government relationship. The forum will launch a much-needed national conversation, responding to calls from the academic and accreditation communities, public officials, and the policy community to re-examine the role of accreditation and its relationship with government. Higher education and accreditation leaders will address the current and future role and importance of self-regulation. No registration fee is being charged. The deadline for registering is September 10, 2008. To register, either call CHEA at Tel. 202.955.6126 or do so online at http://www.chea.org/About/NAF/index.asp. A Special Supplement to The Condition of Education 2008 issued by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) provides a descriptive profile of community colleges in the United States, examines the characteristics of students who entered community college directly from high school, and looks at rates of postsecondary persistence and attainment among community college students in general. It also compares the characteristics of these institutions and of the students who enroll in them with those of public and private four-year colleges and universities. The report can be accessed by clicking http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008033.pdf .Consumers routinely shop the Internet for clothes, cars, travel and electronics. A summary of the survey can be accessed by clicking http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/us_chs_ConsumerSurveyExecutiveSummary_200208.pdf . Medical Tourism: Consumers In Search Of Value The impact of dramatically rising U.S. health care costs is prompting increasing numbers of consumers to consider outbound medical tourism as a viable care option. In 2007, an estimated 750,000 Americans traveled abroad for medical care; this number is anticipated to increase to six million by 2010. Concurrently, inbound medical tourism and medical tourism across state lines continue to present opportunities for specialty hubs offering treatments unavailable elsewhere in the world or in a community setting. Medical Tourism: Consumers in Search of Value , a new paper from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, part of Deloitte LLP, examines the growth of medical tourism: the hot spots for outbound and inbound programs and factors important to the attractiveness of both. Medical tourism is set to explode in growth over the next three to five years. As patients are exposed to greater financial burdens resulting from higher co-payments and price transparency efforts, they are likely to seek low-cost treatment alternatives such as medical tourism. This, in turn, has major implications for health care providers, health plans, employers, regulators and policymakers. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/us_chs_MedicalTourismStudy%283%29.pdf
Differences in mortality between - and within - countries result from the social environment where individuals are born, live, grow, work, and age. These "social determinants of health" have been the focus of a three-year investigation by an eminent group of policy makers, academics, former heads of state and former ministers of health. Together, they comprise the World Health Organization's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Yesterday, the Commission presented its findings to the WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. The report can be accessed by clicking http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241563703_eng.pdf . Income, Poverty, And Health Insurance Coverage In The U.S. A new report presents data on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the U.S. based on information collected in the 2008 and earlier Annual Social and Economic Supplements (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data presented in this report indicate the following: (1) Real median household income increased between 2006 and 2007—the third annual increase. (2) The poverty rate was not statistically different between 2006 and 2007. (3) Both the number and the percentage of individuals without health insurance coverage decreased between 2006 and 2007. These results were not uniform across groups. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf . ACE Analysis Of New Higher Education Act President Bush signed legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) on August 14. The American Council on Education (ACE) has compiled an analysis to help campus administrators to begin understanding the new law. The summary focuses on programs and provisions with broad application to all aspects of higher education and intentionally excludes programs and provisions that, however meritorious they may be, have a narrower or more targeted reach. The new law (PL 110-315) will be complex to implement and contains many undesirable provisions, including a number of new reporting and regulatory requirements. It also creates an unprecedented number of new programs—approximately 70—which will encounter intense competition for scarce resources in order to become operational. HEA now moves to the Department of Education, which faces the challenge of implementing it. The analysis can be accessed by clicking http://www.acenet.edu/e-newsletters/p2p/ACE_HEA_analysis_818.pdf . The Case For Evidence-Based Policy According to a new paper from the Urban Institute, U.S. public policy has increasingly been conceived, debated, and evaluated through the lenses of politics and ideology. The fundamental question—Will the policy work?—too often gets short shrift or even ignored. A remedy is evidence-based policy—a rigorous approach that draws on careful data collection, experimentation, and both quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine what the problem is, which ways it can be addressed, and the probable impacts of each of these ways. Examples of how evidence informs good policy and lack of evidence can invite bad policy include health insurance coverage, education, sentencing policy, and redress for housing discrimination. The paper can be accessed by clicking http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/901189_evidencebased.pdf . More Americans Seeking Health Information, Especially On The Internet In 2007, 56 percent of American adults—more than 122 million people—sought information about a personal health concern from a source other than their doctor, up from 38 percent, or 72 million people, in 2001, according to a national study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Consumers who actively researched health concerns widely reported positive impacts—more than half said the information changed their overall approach to maintaining their health, and four in five said that the information helped them to better understand how to treat an illness or condition, according to findings from HSC's 2007 Health Tracking Household Survey, a nationally representative survey containing information on 18,000 people; the survey had a 43 percent response rate. The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1006/1006.pdfPresident Bush Signs Higher Education Act Legislation Into Law Yesterday, President Bush signed much-delayed legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, the law that governs most federal college and financial aid programs. Provisions include an authority to cut off states' access to College Access Challenge Grants if their investments in higher education dip below the average level for the previous five years. That level would not include capital expenditures or money allocated for research and development. The legislation also would authorize year-round Pell grants and eliminate rules that limit the amount of Pell funds available to students attending the least-expensive schools. It also would increase the maximum Pell grant awards from $4,800 to $6,000 for 2009 and to $8,000 for 2014. Financing the U.S. Health System: Issues And Options For Change Health reform proposals across the spectrum have included changes in how the U.S. health system is financed. The goals of such changes include using financing incentives to promote system goals, replacing insufficient financing mechanisms with more sustainable ones, and increasing Federal subsidies for a reformed health system. Irrespective of their specific design and independent of the delivery system changes they support, these options have policy implications that have received little public attention. A paper from the Bipartisan Policy Center examines the implications of different options for financing the health system. Specifically, it describes recently proposed policies including continuing current financing and redirecting health spending to more effective uses, rolling back high-income tax cuts, modifying the current tax exclusion for health benefits, a play-or-pay model, and a value-added tax. Their effects on individuals, employers, and the health system are explored. The paper can be accessed by clicking http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/financingjune2008.pdf . Evidence-Based Medicine And The Changing Nature Of Health Care A report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) about a workshop on Evidence-Based Medicine And The Changing Nature Of Health Care is available. It is based on some rapidly occurring changes in health care related to new diagnostic and treatment tools, emerging genetic insights, the developments in information technology, and healthcare costs, and discusses the need for a stronger focus on evidence to ensure that the promise of scientific discovery and technological innovation is efficiently captured to provide the right care for the right patient at the right time. As new discoveries continue to expand the universe of medical interventions, treatments, and methods of care, the need for a more systematic approach to evidence development and application becomes increasingly critical. Without better information about the effectiveness of different treatment options, the resulting uncertainty can lead to the delivery of services that may be unnecessary, unproven, or even harmful. Chapters of the report can be downloaded by clicking http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12041#toc . Behavioral Economics: Lessons From Retirement Research For Health Care And Beyond A presentation by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Peter Orszag to the Retirement Research Consortium was made on August 7. In it, he builds on work by researchers in the area of savings and retirement, drawing on insights from behavioral economics. Lessons from that work can be related to the critical arena of health economics. The presentation can be accessed by clicking Health Promotion And Disease Prevention Research Centers Funding The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Procurement and Grants Office has published a funding opportunity announcement entitled, "Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research Centers (U48)." Approximately $25,000,000 will be available in fiscal year 2009 to fund up to 33 awards. This funding opportunity will support a network of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research Centers (PRCs) that: 1) focuses on the major causes of disease and disability, with an emphasis on underserved and minority populations; 2) improves public health practice through community-based participatory research; and 3) designs, tests, disseminates or translates effective public health programs at the state and community levels. The Letter of Intent Receipt Date is September 8, 2008. The Application Submission Receipt Date is October 8, 2008. The estimated funding date is prior to September 30, 2009. Additional information can be accessed by clicking http://www.cdc.gov/od/pgo/funding/DP09-001.htm . Building A Better Path From School To College And Careers How can high schools, community colleges, four-year-colleges, and technical schools collaborate to create better college and career paths for high school students? A report from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) has tackled this question, summarizing the insights of 500 participants in 15 state-level forums, made up of high school principals, community college presidents, business leaders, state education commissioners and more. The report, Lost in Transition: Building a Better path from School to College and Careers, includes recommendations for collaboration among school systems, community colleges, and others, as well as details on successful efforts in the states. The report can be accessed by clicking Rising Rates Of Chronic Health Conditions: What Can Be Done? The Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) sponsored a conference on the topic of Rising Rates of Chronic Health Conditions: What Can Be Done? The growing prevalence of chronic conditions has added cost to the United States health care system. Prevention and better management of chronic conditions are often cited as ways to improve health outcomes and slow U.S. health care spending growth or at least generate better value for the $2.1 trillion spent annually on health care in this country. The conference aimed to provide an overview of the causes, costs, and consequences of rising rates of chronic conditions and some possible policy approaches to address what is clearly a significant public health problem. Slides and transcripts of presentations can be accessed by clicking http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1002/ . Descriptive Summary Of 2003-04 Beginning Postsecondary Students: Three Years Later Using data from the 2004/06 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), this report provides a description of the characteristics and enrollment patterns of a nationally representative sample of students who began postsecondary education for the first time during the 2003-04 academic year. The report describes the background, academic preparation, and experience of these beginning students over three academic years, from July 2003 to June 2006, and provides information about their rates of persistence, program completion, transfer, and attrition. The focus is on differences among students beginning at either four-year, two-year, or less-than-two-year institutions. The report can be accessed by clicking http://nces.ed.gov//pubs2008/2008174.pdf. Medicare Program Vulnerable To Fraud According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), schemes to defraud the Medicare program have grown more elaborate in recent years. In particular, HHS has acknowledged Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service's (CMS) oversight of suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (DMEPOS) is inadequate to prevent fraud and abuse. Specifically, weaknesses in the DMEPOS enrollment and inspection process have allowed sham companies to bill Medicare fraudulently for unnecessary or nonexistent supplies. From April 2006 through March 2007, CMS estimated that Medicare improperly paid $1 billion for DMEPOS supplies--in part due to fraud by suppliers. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigators easily set up two fictitious DMEPOS companies using undercover names and bank accounts. GAO's fictitious companies were approved for Medicare billing privileges despite having no clients and no inventory. CMS initially denied GAO's applications in part because of this lack of inventory, but undercover GAO investigators fabricated contracts with nonexistent wholesale suppliers to convince CMS and its contractor, the National Supplier Clearinghouse (NSC), that the companies had access to DMEPOS items. If real fraudsters had been in charge of the fictitious companies, they would have been clear to bill Medicare for potentially millions of dollars worth of nonexistent supplies. The GAO report can be accessed by clicking http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08955.pdf . Analysis of BLS Health Occupation Projections A report prepared by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York presents a summary of labor projections for the period 2006 through 2016 for health care settings and health care occupations. Every two years, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes occupational and industry projections for employment in the United States for the coming decade. Projections by sector and by occupation for the period 2006 through 2016 were released in November 2007. The Center analyzed these projections and summarized the most significant findings related to health care employment. The report in the form of a PDF document can be accessed by pasting the following in the URL box C:\DOCUME~1\TOM~1.ASA\LOCALS~1\Temp\blsproj2008.zip. A new report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers indicates that healthcare costs continue to outpace the rate of inflation, but the silver lining is that since 2003 the percentage rate of increases has diminished each year. According to employers and health plans, that trend is predicted to level off in 2009 and premium increases should be expected in the future. Changes in patient behavior and new technology have helped to limit recent medical cost increases in the recent past, but these are being offset by multiple factors which are expected to reverse past trends and help drive medical cost increases in 2009. The report can be accessed by clicking http://pwchealth.com/cgi-local/hregister.cgi?link=reg/numbers2009.pdf .
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