May 2020

To mark the 25th anniversary of the journal, each issue in 2020 will include an interview with a healthcare thought leader. For the May issue, we turned to Larry Levitt, MPP, executive vice president for health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Since 2015, the majority of new accountable care organizations (ACOs) have been led by physician groups rather than hospital systems. This shift requires policies that address the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of physician-led ACOs.

Despite previous research evidence, this study did not reveal an overall association of health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy with all-cause hospitalizations or mortality.

The revolving door of readmissions keeps spinning for patients who report symptoms of shortness of breath.

Medical home enrollment had mixed effects on acute care use and a large effect on outpatient care use. Effects on expenditures varied by mental illness.

Ambulatory care–sensitive conditions can be systematically assessed in a large electronic medical database to describe admission rates by year, catchment area, and hospital affiliation.

Osteoporotic fractures are associated with a significant economic burden, including costs of rehabilitation services and a high total all-cause cost of care.

This manuscript describes a new interdisciplinary model for scheduling new patients with a clinical pharmacist and a primary care provider to increase productivity.

Treatment with fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (FF/UMEC/VI) compared with FF/VI or UMEC/VI reduced exacerbation-related costs associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the US healthcare system.

Specific measures using a Six Sigma approach led to sustained reduction of door-to-balloon times among patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) in a community setting.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will exacerbate the financial situations of the millions of Americans who struggle to afford their medical care, but policy solutions are available to quickly mitigate this problem.

The speed and extent of biosimilar penetration differ across provider types. Provider awareness and incentives are significantly associated with biosimilar uptake.