Public–Private Collaboration in Health and Human Service Delivery: Evidence from Community Partnerships

The collaboration among public–private partnerships that applied to the Community Care Network (CCN) demonstration program of the Hospital Research and Educational Trust is examined. These partnerships link broad-based community coalitions with health and human service providers in efforts to improve community health and local service delivery. Although they willingly collaborated in identifying community health needs, coordinating services, and reporting to the community, partnership participants showed less alacrity in joining forces to reduce redundancy and increase efficiency. Such patterns suggest that organizations might best profit from working together on activities that maintain existing power relations and that have the potential to add prestige and attract new clients. Collaboration in these areas may be essential to building a foundation of trust that leads to future cooperation in more sensitive areas.     

Altered chromatin landscape in circulating T follicular helper and regulatory cells following grass pollen subcutaneous and sublingual immunotherapy

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Consumers and quality-driven health care: a call to action

A key strategy for driving improvements in health care quality is providing comparative quality information to consumers. This strategy will not work, and could even be counterproductive, unless (1) consumers are convinced that quality problems are real and consequential and that quality can be improved; (2) purchasers and policymakers make sure that quality reporting is standardized and universal; (3) consumers are given quality information that is relevant and easy to understand and use; (4) the dissemination of quality information is improved; and (5) purchasers reward quality improvements and providers create the information and organizational infrastructure to achieve them.     

Qualitative research methods.

The use of rigorous qualitative research methods can enhance the development of quality measures, the development and dissemination of comparative quality reports, as well as quality improvement efforts. This paper describes how such methods have been and can be used, and identifies how to improve the use of such methods in studying quality of care. Focus groups and cognitive interviews are now a standard part of the development of valid and reliable survey instruments. They are particularly useful in developing surveys to gather data on the experiences and responses of patients and consumers to plans, services, and providers. These two methods have also been adapted and applied to improve the development and dissemination of comparative quality reports to consumers and other audiences, while key informant interviews and focus groups have been critical in the exploratory assessment of stakeholder responses to reports and their effects on consumers. Interviews have also been used to identify best practices found in health plans receiving high scores on the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Surveys and measures of effectiveness in the Health Employer Data and Information Set. It would be valuable to widen the use of qualitative methods, especially structured observations, to document in detail the delivery of services designed to improve quality, so the implementation of complex processes can be more carefully measured and related to outcomes. The design and conduct of rigorous qualitative research takes a skilled and experienced team. Issues commonly faced in quantitative work must also be addressed in qualitative studies, including study design, specification of the unit of analysis, sampling, instrument design and administration, and, in particular, data analysis. It is especially critical that the analysis and interpretation process be deliberate and thorough to avoid the use of initial impression rather than detailed examination of the raw data.     

A GIS-based methodology for improving needle exchange service delivery

Background

A variety of legal, social and logistical factors can prevent individuals from accessing formal needle exchange programmes. One common solution to this problem is satellite exchange, which involves collaborating with people who already use an exchange to deliver needles and other supplies to those unable to access the exchange. While this approach can be very successful, one potential problem is that those most willing to deliver needles to their peers are often members of social networks that are already well connected with the needle exchange, leading to duplication of effort.In this paper we describe a simple and novel method for identifying groups of people who are demonstrably in need of improved access to needles, and for re-targeting efforts to meet the needs of those people. The method described was piloted at the Homeless Youth Alliance, San Francisco, USA, and further refined at Clean Needles Now, Los Angeles, USA.

Methods

People accessing needle exchange sites were asked to participate in a survey with two questions: “where were you and what time was it last time someone borrowed a needle from you?” and “where were you and what time was it last time you had to borrow a needle from someone else?” Responses were geocoded, and maps produced showing ‘hotspots’ where people were frequently finding themselves without needles.

Results

Satellite needle exchange was refined from an ad-hoc activity into one which focused on delivering needles to those with empirically demonstrable need. Maps produced in the process also proved valuable in discussions with local officials and other agencies about funding, as well as needle provision policy and practices.

Conclusion

We describe a method for rapidly assessing, describing, and responding to unmet and under-met need among injecting drug users. The method is particularly well-suited to organizations with extremely limited resources.     

Does providing cost-effectiveness information change coverage priorities for citizens acting as social decision makers?

Escalating costs have generated increasing calls for Medicare to use cost-effectiveness as one criterion in determining coverage decisions. Decision-makers in U.S. health care have largely assumed that the public will reject any explicit consideration of cost in coverage policy, but there has been little formal testing of that hypothesis. We tested this assumption in a pilot study in which groups of citizens learned about and discussed health care costs, CEA methods, and common ethical issues embedded in CEA. Participants received information about 14 conditions and treatments and were asked to prioritize them for funding by Medicare under assumptions of constrained resources. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, this diverse sample understood CEA, were largely open to its use, and changed their own funding priorities when given cost-effectiveness ratio information.     

Medicare and cost-effectiveness analysis: time to ask the taxpayers

Maintaining Medicare's affordability for taxpayers and beneficiaries is becoming harder. Although cost containment strategies have been proposed, using cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) to prioritize coverage decisions has not been among them. There is a widespread but largely untested perception that Americans are unwilling to accept limits in health care. We review existing evidence about the public's willingness to accept constraints and set health care priorities. We suggest that given the opportunity to weigh in on ethical and normative issues that surround CEA, members of the public are appropriate parties to engage in shaping Medicare's broadest resource allocation questions.