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.
In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent policies, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health launched a campaign to promote awareness of county mental health resources and communicate messages of hope and support. RAND evaluators found that the campaign successfully reached residents, fostered a feeling of support among those it reached, and conveyed how to seek mental health help.
The authors present the results of two modified-Delphi online expert panels consisting of national experts on substance-exposed mother-infant dyads. The goal of the study was to inform the work of a federal steering committee on the development of clinical definitions of neonatal abstinence syndrome and neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome. Standardizing clinical definitions will help improve diagnosis, surveillance, and interventions.
This Perspective addresses the importance of effectively matching the message, the audience, and the sender to encourage people to get a COVID-19 vaccine. It offers suggestions about how to leverage variations between individuals in such factors as risk perception and variation among U.S. subcultures for tendencies to follow rules or act for the collective good. It further discusses how to deal with misinformation.
We find ecological evidence consistent with racial/ethnic disparities in buprenorphine distribution. Our finding that initiatives to increase the number of waivered prescribers are insufficient to achieve equitable buprenorphine access.
We provide the first evidence on associations between individual characteristics and the propensity to experience an involuntary care disruption resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Too much emotional support" is not always viewed negatively in consumer ratings of hospice care.
This Research Brief summarizes the spending impact of policy options to reduce hospital prices paid by private health plans, outlining design choices and effectiveness levels for each approach.
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.
RAND researchers used 2018 prescription drug volume and price data to compare U.S. drug prices with those in 32 other nations, both overall and for specific categories of drugs, such as brand-name and generic medications.
This study uses data from 14 qualitative interviews with senior leaders and nine focus groups with tenants and program staff to understand tenant experiences with permanent supportive housing programs, as they relate to care coordination.
To evaluate a multipronged intervention to reduce low-value preoperative care for patients undergoing cataract surgery and analyze costs from various fiscal perspectives.
Older adults are particularly vulnerable to complications from proton pump inhibitor drugs. We sought to characterize the prevalence of potentially low-value PPI prescriptions among older adults to inform a quality improvement intervention.
To develop and assess the reliability and validity of composite measures of reasons for disenrollment from Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans.
We describe quality improvement changes that skilled nursing facilities reported making in response to CMS performance measurements and whether reported QI changes were associated with better performance on CMS performance measures.
We examined whether state and regional advance care planning initiatives play a role in the presence of "do not administer antibiotics" orders for nursing home residents at the end of life.
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.
Researchers present a subset of results from May and October 2020 surveys fielded through the RAND American Life Panel to assess changes in levels of trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Non-Hispanic white and Hispanic respondents reported significant declines in trust, while the changes were not statistically significant for non-Hispanic black or respondents of other races.
We examined how people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, particularly Black participants, and participants residing in food deserts.
Interviews with family members about their loved one's end-of-life care found that a majority thought he or she received the right amount of care. One in six said their family member received too little care.
