Quality of care is the extent to which all individuals receive the right care, at the right time, every time. RAND has been conducting research on measuring and assessing quality of health care for 40 years, and RAND teams developed many of the quality measures being used around the world today. In 2005, RAND analysts produced the first national report card on quality of care in the United States.
The article examines whether subjective performance assessments from health system executives match objective performance assessments and qualitatively explores ways to achieve high performance.
Between 2014 and 2017, clinics with EHRs having greater capabilities had better quality measures than other clinics, but clinics that gained EHR capabilities during this time had smaller increases in quality that were not statistically significant.
Consumers of health care in the United States often lack information on the actual prices of the care they receive and can also lack access to information about the quality of their care. RAND researchers gathered information on how health care prices are set, price variation in health care markets, barriers to price and quality transparency for consumers, and the extent to which price and quality information is used in marketing efforts.
Across a sample of patients seen by chiropractors, spinal manipulation was rated by experts as appropriate for most patients with chronic lower back pain and as equivocal (uncertain) for most patients with chronic neck pain.
Medicare’s value-based purchasing programs do not currently include health equity measures. This work identified 10 existing approaches to health equity measurement and convened a technical expert panel to identify the most promising approaches.
We performed an observational cohort analysis of Medicare Advantage plans that were eligible for the Star Ratings program.
In this perspective piece, we explore the implications of poor quality electronic health data on the use of population health management algorithms for patients, clinicians, and policymakers.
This article reviews the literature on associations between patient experience and business outcomes, including patient allegiance and retention, complaints, lawsuits, provider job satisfaction, and profitability.
This report provides an independent assessment of the breadth, scope, and impact of health services and primary care research funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from FYs 2012 to 2018. The authors identify research gaps and offer recommendations for maximizing the outcomes and value of future investments in health services and primary care research by federal agencies.
Opportunities exist to improve hospice care for symptom palliation and training for caregivers when their family members are at home or in an ALF setting. Efforts to improve care for cancer patients in the NH and ALF setting are especially needed.
Previous reviews examined palliative care improvements or available measures but none explicitly on improving care experiences. We reviewed literature on improving patient and/or caregiver end-of-life care experiences.
In this interim evaluation of the New York State Medicaid program's Children's Design, the authors identify facilitators of, and barriers to, its implementation, describe and delineate baseline trends in outcomes of interest, and assess the feasibility of identifying comparison groups for analyses that will contribute to a summative evaluation of the program.
RAND Health Care researchers used public and private data, such as data from health care claims, to understand telehealth's effect on health care delivery and how it affects care quality, access, equity, and costs.
Stakeholders such as palliative care patients and their providers and health systems lack actionable measures to assess performance and guide improvement efforts in palliative care. In this report, the authors describe the results of their national beta field test for a performance measure designed to assess the extent to which patients who used ambulatory palliative care felt heard and understood by their palliative care provider and team.
Stakeholders such as palliative care patients and their providers and health systems lack actionable measures to assess performance and guide improvement efforts in palliative care. In this report, the authors describe the results of their national beta field test for a performance measure designed to assess the extent to which patients who used ambulatory palliative care received the help they wanted for their pain.
In 2020, the Immediate Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services sought to identify measures that could improve the ability of the United States and other countries to learn from international comparisons of health system performance. RAND Corporation researchers worked with 15 experts in quality measurement, clinical care, and health economics to generate and prioritize potential measure constructs.
This research brief describes the development and testing of two patient-centered quality measures of symptom management and communication and provides considerations for palliative care providers that plan to use them.
New York State's Medicaid Section 1115 Waiver seeks to enroll a majority of Medicaid beneficiaries into managed care, increase access and service quality, and expand coverage to more low-income New Yorkers. This final interim evaluation report examines whether two components of the 1115 Demonstration Waiver—the Managed Long-Term Care (MLTC) program and the 12-month continuous eligibility policy—have helped achieve the program's goals.
Studies risk avoidance behavior by health care workers during the Covid-19 pandemic and examines implications for patient welfare.
To advance understanding of primary care clinic productivity, the authors reviewed relevant literature and convened a diverse set of stakeholders to explore definitions of productivity, input, and output in primary care; identify relevant tools; and establish consensus on key aspects of primary care productivity.
