Category: Health

Two heads are better than one: Multi-physician practices improve heart patients’ outcomes

Although single-physician practices still are dominant in the United States, multi-physician practices tend to provide better care for people who suffer heart attacks. Heart attack patients receive less-timely treatment and have worse chances of survival if they are treated by solo physicians rather than physicians from larger practices, according to a new study authored by Jonathan Ketcham, an assistant professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business.

Do employers discriminate against the disabled?

Persons with disabilities earn less and are less likely to be employed, a phenomenon often explained away as the result of lower productivity due to the impact of functional limitations. In an important new book, economists Marjorie L. Baldwin and William G. Johnson review economic studies utilizing labor-market data that suggest employer discrimination may contribute to the poor outcomes for workers with disabilities.

Keep it to yourself? The costly stigma of mental illness

Sixteen years after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed, workers with mental illness still face a disheartening choice: keep their health problems a secret at work, or risk being shunned, passed over, paid up to one-third less, or even fired, according to a new study conducted by the School of Health Management and Policy at the W.P. Carey School of Business.

Health care transparency: Just what the doctor ordered

How do you know which hospitals are doing the best job? Patients, insurers and employers all have a stake in the answer to this question, but up until now factual information on hospital and nursing home performance has been scanty, and what is out there is based on differing criteria. A new program designed by the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance called "Quality Health Improvement" (QHI) is a strong first step in bringing transparency to healthcare. Arizona and five other states have been chosen to pilot the project, which will rate hospitals on 26 "quality measures." Arizona HealthQuery, a database of health information on more than seven million people, will be the foundation of the state’s project. Arizona HealthQuery was created at ASU’s Center for Health Information and Research.

Clashing cultures contribute to racial disparities in medical care

Clashing cultural cues – rather than discriminatory doctors – could cause at least part of the medical care gap between black and white Americans, according to a recent study of patient adherence by Jonathan D. Ketcham, a professor of health management and policy at the W. P. Carey School of Business, and Karen E. Lutfey of the New England Research Institutes in Watertown, Massachusetts. Ketcham said that his results indicated "no evidence of a negative stereotype against black patients. In fact, it seemed to be only about communication – the physicians and patients disagreed about how adherent they were."

Universal health care coverage: Cheaper in the long run?

Thirteen years after then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s 1,000-page universal health-care plan met with derision, an increasing number of public policymakers are coming full circle, advocating mandatory enrollment for everyone and coverage regardless of age, income and pre-existing medical problems. Evidence of the apparent attitude adjustment is obvious in state legislatures, where proposed laws such as Massachusetts’ Health Care Trust, which would establish a universal, single-payer health plan for all Massachusetts residents, are being debated. Legislators’ willingness to embrace single-payer salvation reflects less a change of heart than a key realization: Statistics indicate universal health care is cheaper, in the long run, than the status quo. Arizona health policy experts gathered to discuss these issues at a "Faces of the Uninsured" conference recently in Phoenix.