CURRENT RESEARCH AND NEWS

Now Available: HRET Disparities Toolkit for Collecting Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language Data

HRET now offers an updated Web-based Toolkit for collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language data from patients. The Toolkit provides hospitals, health systems, clinics, and health plans with information and resources for collecting this information efficiently, effectively, and respectfully. This free easy-to-use resource describes how to educate and inform hospital staff about the importance of data collection; how to implement a framework to collect race, ethnicity, and primary language data; and how to use these data to improve quality of care for all populations. Access the Toolkit at www.hretdisparities.org.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

ACHI Audioconference: Thursday, February 21

Join ACHI on Thursday, February 21, at 1:00-2:00 p.m. CT (11:00-12:00 PT, 12:00-1:00 MT, 2:00-3:00 ET) for the audioconference "Partnership for Community Health: A Public-Private Model for Bridging the Gap of the Uninsured," presented by Shirley Manly Lampkin, RN, PhD, from California Pacific Medical Center and Allen Meyer, JD, from the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium. Learn how a nonprofit medical center partnered with a multisite public clinic consortium to help address primary, specialty, and preventive health needs. Session details and registration can be found here.

ACHI Audioconference: Tuesday, March 18

Join ACHI on Tuesday, March 18, at 1:00-2:00 p.m. CT (11:00-12:00 PT, 12:00-1:00 MT, 2:00-3:00 ET) for the audioconference "Show, Don't Tell: The Power of Storytelling in Communicating Community Initiatives," by Nancy Buono Cartwright, managing director of communications for Kaiser Permanent Northern California. Learn key communications strategies to effectively engage internal and external audiences. Session details and registration can be found here.

ACHI Annual Conference Coming March 5-7

The Association for Community Health Improvement's 2008 Spring Training for Health Champions conference, set for March 5-7, 2008, in Atlanta, GA, is the premier community health and community benefit event. Hundreds of professionals from health care, public health, healthy communities, and health philanthropy will gather to meet and learn together. Keynote speakers will address national health reform, health equity, and cross-sector partnerships for health. The president of the American Hospital Association, Richard Umbdenstock, will be joined by Neil Nicoll, president and CEO, YMCA of the USA, to present a keynote, "Real Collaboration for Community Health: Lessons, Opportunities, and Imperatives." Thirty breakout sessions will be featured with 40 speakers in five topic tracks:

• Minimizing Chronic Disease
• Maximizing Access and Coverage
• Harnessing Data for Health Improvement (including needs assessment)
• Delivering Community Benefit
• Health System / Public Health Partnerships

Pre-conference workshops offer in-depth and hands-on tools for new and existing projects. For more details or to register, click here.

Fourteenth Annual Health Care Research Award: Call for Articles

The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Research and Educational Foundation is pleased to announce its Fourteenth Annual Health Care Research Award recognizing outstanding work in health policy and health care management. The award recognizes excellence in original and creative research in the areas of health care financing, delivery, organization, and the implementation of health care policy. The award includes a $10,000 prize to the winning article. All submitted entries must have appeared in a peer-reviewed journal or similar-quality publication between January 1 and December 31, 2007. Entry forms and application instructions are available online at http://www.nihcm.org/awards/research. The postmark deadline for entries is February 29, 2008.

Regional Conference Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

The Massachusetts Hospital Association will be addressing the critical issue of "Caring for Diverse Populations: Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care" at a February 15, 2008 conference in Waltham, MA. The conference will feature key leaders from the hospital community as well as from key state agencies. Innovative programs and best practices will be looked at, and experts in the field will also look at how organizations can make cultural competence part of their strategic plans. To receive a brochure, contact Kirsten Singleton at 781-272-8000, ext 147 or go to: www.mhalink.org/public/education.

HRET FELLOWSHIPS

HRET Is Accepting Applications for the 2008-2009 Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship

Are your investments in safety improvement yielding lasting results? The HRET Leadership Fellowship can help. The HRET Fellowship program is a yearlong intensive learning experience focused on improving the organizational approach to and impact on patient safety. Fellows gain new skills, tools, and leadership capability to better engage staff and clinicians to create cultures of safety and provide highly reliable care. Take this opportunity to apply now, or nominate colleagues. Visit www.hretfellowships.org or call (312) 422-2625 for more information. Applications are due February 15, 2008.

RECENT ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS

New Issue Brief on Health Care Disparities

A new issue brief by HRET, "Health Care Disparities Influenced by Where Minorities Seek Care," discusses the results of a recent study by HRET and several partners. The study examined whether disparities occur within or between hospitals for specific inpatient processes of care. The issue brief summarizes study results first published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. To read the full issue brief, click here.

H&HN OutBox: Maintaining Quality of Life

"Maintaining Quality of Life," by Deborah Bohr, senior director of special projects at HRET, was featured in the December 2007 issue of Hospitals & Health Networks. The article outlines the benefits and scope of palliative care programs and details the work of the Hospital-Based Palliative Care Consortium (HBPCC). The HBPCC program, managed by HRET and funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), enables hospitals and health systems interested in starting or expanding palliative care programs to learn from and visit other organizations with long-established, successful end-of-life programs. Click here to read the article.

H&HN OutBox: Evidence-Based Management

The November 2007 issue of Hospitals & Health Networks features the OutBox column "Evidence-Based Management," by Thomas Rundall, executive associate dean and Henry J. Kaiser Professor of Organized Health Systems at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Rundall also serves as codirector of the Center for Health Management Research, a program of HRET. The article outlines and describes four key strategies for managers when implementing evidence-based management in health care organizations. It also emphasizes how the success of evidence-based management requires the continual leadership of boards, executives, clinical staff, and managers. To read the article, click here.

H&HN Online: The Struggle to Pay for Health Care

"The Struggle to Pay for Health Care," by Cynthia Hedges Greising and Samantha Hawkins of HRET, was featured in H&HN Online in December. The article summarizes recent findings of the annual HRET/Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey. While the average rate of premium increases for employer-sponsored health insurance was only in the single digits in 2007, at 6.1 percent, the rate of increase was still higher than the rate of increase in workers' wages and overall inflation. Furthermore, over 65 percent of employers are "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to increase employees' out-of-pocket contributions in the coming year. Click here to read the article.

HSR Special Issue - Volume II Now Available Online

After an overwhelming response to the call for papers, HSR has published Part II of a special collection of manuscripts online on state health research and policy. The first volume, "Using State-Level Evidence to Inform Policy," focuses on unique methodologies and approaches to state-level research. The second volume, "Evidence of Impact in State Initiatives to Improve Medicaid/SCHIP," addresses state-administered public programs of Medicaid and SCHIP and addresses a broad range of issues from Medicaid home care spending for the elderly to prior authorization of COX-2 inhibitor drugs. Both volumes comprise the best state-level health services research and provide an introduction to researchers who work within states to inform local policy development. Manuscripts can be found at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/hesr.

HRET in the News - 2007

HRET tracks media outlets mentioning our work in the field, using Google alerts. In 2007 HRET was mentioned in Google alerts on a variety of topics including the Employer Health Benefits Survey results, green health, and health care disparities. There were 100 HRET mentions in Google news alerts identifying new information HRET disseminated to the field over the year. HRET was mentioned 23 times in Google Web alerts leading viewers to the HRET Web site, as well as 116 times in Google blog alerts, where HRET's research was cited in online blogs, both personal and professional. To view the HRET Web site, click here.