Category: Health Economics

The nation’s health care supply chain: A holistic perspective

If there is one area of discourse within supply chain dynamics that has been ignored or underplayed, it is the complexity of the health-care supply chain. This lack of evidence-based inquiry has hampered the field, which has lacked a comprehensive, research-substantiated offering. A new book, "Strategic Management of the Health Care Supply Chain," by Eugene Schneller, professor of health management and policy in the W. P. Carey School of Business, and the late Larry Smeltzer, begins to fill the gap. The authors define the key themes and issues in the health-care supply chain, offering solutions that acknowledge its burgeoning influence and its impact on the economy.

Saving the children: Nearly a third of Arizona’s child fatalities are preventable

In 2004, Arizona reported the deaths of 1,048 children under 18. Nearly a third of them didn’t have to die, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Child Fatality Review Team. In its 12th annual report, the team it reviewed 98 percent, or 1,031, of last year’s reported deaths, and found that 309 were preventable. "Every year we are struck by the number of deaths that are preventable," said Dr. Mary Rimsza, research professor at the W. P. Carey School’s Center for Health Information and Research and chairman of the review team.

 

Gainsharing in health care: Cost-saving kick start … or kickback?

As the price of health care continues to rise, hospitals around the country have turned to a 70-year-old economic model — gainsharing — to try to bring down costs. In its simplest form, gainsharing involves monetary rewards for workers’ innovative cost-cutting ideas. Over the years, gainsharing has evolved into many forms and in many industries, eventually making its way into health care where it is generating controversy today. The health-care field brings its unique issues to the table: Not only are there difficulties in measuring the financial aspects of outcomes, there are ethical issues involved. But, some researchers note, as gainsharing models evolve in health care, they may prove beneficial for patients as well as physicians and hospitals.

Psychiatrists in short supply throughout Western states

A study from the new Center for Health Information and Research details a shortage of psychiatrists across the nation that is particularly severe in Western states. Anchoring the bottom of a list that ranks states by number of psychiatrists per 100,000 population are Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Alaska. In Arizona, the shortage leaves some counties with no psychiatrists at all. The situation is particularly acute in the pediatric specialties. As a result, pediatricians and primary care physicians are acquiring additional training in mental health services, and in some cases are assisting psychiatrists to shoulder the caseload.

Katrina’s heavy blow reveals health care frailties

Without the experience of a war on its shores, the United States has not developed a plan to provide health care to large numbers of people at once. Even the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, did not result in this kind of planning. Exacerbating the situation, decades of cost-cutting and tight reimbursements have left the health-care system in the United States with almost no excess capacity. In the aftermath of wind and water, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast must determine how best to care for its sick with greatly reduced facilities. W. P. Carey School experts comment on the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Arizona’s physician shortage hovering near critical stage

If states were graded based on the number of doctors in service to the population, Arizona would get a D-minus, according to a recent study undertaken jointly by the School of Health Management and Policy at the W. P. Carey School of Business and the University of Arizona College of Medicine. The numbers place Arizona near the bottom of a ranking of states based on their supply of physicians, along with Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alaska. And while Arizona’s population continues to climb at a record pace, the inrushing tide of immigrants contains few doctors. With the growth of the population and the aging of the baby-boomer generation, that D-minus grade is about to get worse.