Quality-of-care research: internal elegance and external relevance.
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Consumer Behavior↗
Biomedical subjects
B Starfield
Publications and source records attributed to B Starfield.
Changes in the daily practice of primary care for children.
BACKGROUND: The environment in which medicine is practiced has changed in the past 2 decades, but little information has been available on how the day-to-day practice of primary care for children has changed during this period. OBJECTIVE: To identify aspects of primary care practices for children that are undergoing substantial changes. DESIGN: Analysis of National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys from 1979 to 1981, 1985, and 1989 to 1994. PARTICIPANTS: Primary care practitioners recorded data on 58,488 child visits. MAIN OUT COME MEASURES: Characteristics and insurance status of children, physician activities during visits, and disposition after visit. RESULTS: Child visits to primary care physicians increased by 22% between 1979 and 1994. The mean age of children visiting primary care physicians decreased from 6.7 years in 1979 to 5.7 years in 1994 (P for trend, < .001). The ethnic diversity of child visits increased primarily as a result of an increasing proportion of visits by Hispanic (6.0% in 1979 to 12.6% in 1994, P for trend, < .001) and Asian patients (1.6% in 1979 to 4.1% in 1994, P for trend, < .001). Medicaid and managed care increased dramatically as sources of payment. Changes in physician activities included an increase in some preventive services, changes in the most commonly encountered medications, and an increased mean duration of patient visits (11.8 minutes in 1979 to 14.2 minutes in 1994, P for trend, < .001). CONCLUSIONS: These data may assist in the development of educational and research initiatives for physicians caring for children. The declining proportion of adolescent visits may present physicians with challenges in the care of adolescents. Physician prescribing practices showed changes without evidence of a benefit to child health. The increased ethnic diversity and provision of preventive services were associated with an increased mean duration of primary care visits. The increased duration of child visits may conflict with the managed care emphasis on physician productivity.
Asian↗
Adolescents' knowledge of their health insurance coverage.
PURPOSE: To determine the accuracy of adolescents' self-report of health insurance coverage, using parents' report as a comparison standard. METHODS: Two separate samples of urban, school-based adolescents and their parents completed self-administered questionnaires about type of health insurance coverage. Sample 1 included 123 and Sample 2 included 93 adolescent-parent pairs. Percent agreement and the kappa statistic were determined for each of the sample groups, and for males versus females and older (> 14 years) versus younger (< or = 14 years) adolescents. RESULTS: In Sample 1, 33% of adolescent respondents responded "don't know" to the question about type of insurance coverage, and 4% left the question blank; in Sample 2, 3% answered "don't know," with none leaving the question blank. For Sample 1, we found a 57% rate of agreement of adolescents with their parents, and a corresponding kappa of .21. Females and older subjects demonstrated greater accuracy, with kappa's all in the range .13-.29. In Sample 2, 73% of subjects agreed with parents' report, with a kappa of .48. Females and older subjects also demonstrated greater accuracy, with the highest kappa of .59 demonstrated by older females. Excluding those responding with "don't know," we found overall percent agreement with parents of 87% in Sample 1 and 73% in Sample 2; the corresponding kappas were .47 and .51. Females demonstrated higher agreement with parents in both samples. The results stratifying by age were inconsistent. In Sample 1, privately insured subjects were more accurate reporters than those either on medical assistance or uninsured. In Sample 2, no differences were seen by type of insurance. CONCLUSIONS: Many adolescents do not know their health insurance coverage status. However, for those who did claim to know, acceptable rates of accuracy using both percent agreement and the kappa statistic were demonstrated. Further research is needed to determine how information about insurance is communicated to adolescents and how this knowledge affects access to and use of health services.
Adolescent↗
A taxonomy of adolescent health: development of the adolescent health profile-types.
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to develop a taxonomy of health profile-types that describe adolescents' patterns of health as self-reported on a health status questionnaire. The intent was to be able to assign individuals to mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups that characterize the important aspects of their health and need for health services. METHODS: Cluster analytic empirical methods and clinically based conceptual methods were used to identify patterns of health in samples of adolescents from schools and from clinics that serve adolescents with chronic conditions and acute illnesses. Individuals with similar patterns of scores across multiple domains were assigned to the same profile-type. Results from the empirical and conceptually based methods were integrated to produce a practical system for assigning youths to profile-types. RESULTS: Four domains of health (Satisfaction, Discomfort, Risks and Resilience) were used to group individuals into 13 distinct profile-types. The profile-types were characterized primarily by the number of domains in which health is poor, identifying the unique combinations of problems that characterize different subgroups of adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: This method of reporting the information available on health status surveys is potentially a more informative way of identifying and classifying the health needs of subgroups in the population than is available from global scores or multiple scale scores. The reliability and validity of this taxonomy of health profile-types for the purposes of planning and evaluating health services must be demonstrated. That is the purpose of the accompanying study.
Acute Disease↗
Reliability and validity of the adolescent health profile-types.
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the preliminary reliability and validity of a set 13 profiles of adolescent health that describe distinct patterns of health and health service requirements on four domains of health. METHODS: Reliability and validity were tested in four ethnically diverse population samples of urban and rural youths aged 11 to 17-years-old in public schools (N = 4,066). The reliability of the classification procedure and construct validity were examined in terms of the predicted and actual distributions of age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and family type. School achievement, medical conditions, and the proportion of youths with a psychiatric disorder also were examined as tests of construct validity. RESULTS: The classification method was shown to produce consistent results across the four populations in terms of proportions of youths assigned with specific sociodemographic characteristics. Variations in health described by specific profiles showed expected relations to sociodemographic characteristics, family structure, school achievement, medical disorders, and psychiatric disorders. CONCLUSIONS: This taxonomy of health profile-types appears to effectively describe a set of patterns that characterize adolescent health. The profile-types provide a unique and practical method for identifying subgroups having distinct needs for health services, with potential utility for health policy and planning. Such integrative reporting methods are critical for more effective utilization of health status instruments in health resource planning and policy development.
Adolescent↗
A comparison of ambulatory Medicaid claims to medical records: a reliability assessment.
This study compares the documentation of ambulatory care visits and diagnoses in Medicaid paid claims and in medical records. Data were obtained from Maryland Medicaid's 1988 paid claims files for 2407 individuals who were continuously enrolled for the fiscal year, had at least one billed visit for one of six indicator conditions, and had received the majority of their care from one provider. The patients sampled were also stratified on the basis of the case-mix adjusted cost of their usual source of care. The medical records for these individuals as maintained by their usual source of care were abstracted by trained nurse reviewers to compare claims and record information. Linked claim and medical record data for sampled patients were used to calculate: (i) the percent of billed visits documented in the record, (ii) the percent of medical record visits where both the date and the diagnosis agreed with the claims data, and (iii) the ratio of medical record visits to visits from billed claims. Included in the analysis were independent variables specifying place of residence, type and costliness of usual care source, level of patient utilization, and indicator condition on which patient was sampled. Ninety percent of the visits chronicled in the paid claims were documented in the medical record with 82% agreeing on both date and diagnosis. Compared to the medical records kept by private physicians and community health centers, a significantly lower percent of hospital medical records agreed with the claims data. Total volume of visits was 2.6% higher in the medical records than in the claims. Claims data substantially understated visits in the medical record by 25% for low cost providers and by 41% for patients with low use rates (based on claims information). Conversely, medical records substantially understated billed visits by 19% for rural patients and by 10% for persons with high visit rates. Although Medicaid claims are relatively accurate and useful for examining average ambulatory use patterns, they are subject to significant biases when comparing subgroups of providers classified by case-mix adjusted cost and patients classified by utilization rates. Medicaid programs are using claims data for profiling and performance assessment need to understand the limitations of administrative data.
Adult↗
Entry into primary care and continuity: the effects of access.
OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationship between access and use of primary care physicians as sources of first contact and continuity with the medical system. METHODS: Data from the 1987 National Medical expenditure Survey were used to examine the effects of access on use of primary care physicians as sources of first contact for new episodes of care (by logistic regression) and as sources of continuity for all ambulatory visits (by multi-variate linear regression). RESULTS: No after-hours care, longer office waits, and longer travel times reduced the chances of a first-contact visit with a primary care physician for acute health problems. Longer appointment waits, no insurance, and no after-hours care were associated with lower levels of continuity. Generalists provided more first-contact care than specialists acting as primary care physicians, largely because of their more accessible practices. CONCLUSIONS: These data provide support for the linkage between access and care seeking with primary care physicians.
Adolescent↗
The consequences of universalizing health services: children's use of health services in Catalonia.
The purpose of this study was to assess the role of needs and social factors in the use of health services among children under age 15 in Catalonia, Spain, where health care reform was explicitly designed to facilitate universal access to primary care according to health needs. Data from the Catalan Health Interview Survey of 1994, a multistage probability sample (2,433 children under 15 years old), were analyzed. Multiple regression examined the relationship between health needs and number of visits in the last year, controlling for the effect of sociodemographic characteristics. Two logistic regression equations were selected to predict heavy (more than seven visits per year) and light (less than two visits) utilization of services. The multiple regression model explained 14.3 percent of the variance in number of visits, with health status perception, disability, reported chronic condition, restriction of activities, and having had a recent accident by far the most important determinants. No familial socioeconomic characteristics, including social class, education, or family size, influenced the extent of use. In contrast to health systems not designed to achieve either universal access according to need or strong primary care, universal access to health services in Catalonia appears to enhance the use of services among children with health needs, regardless of socioeconomic characteristics.
Adolescent↗
"Carving out" conditions from global capitation rates: protecting high-cost patients, physicians, and health plans in a managed care environment.
The purposes of this study were (1) to develop a method for identifying individuals with high-cost medical conditions, (2) to determine the percentage of healthcare spending they represent, and (3) to explore policy implications of "carving out" their care from managed care capitation. Annual payments over a 2-year period to enrollees of three health plans--a traditional managed care organization, and a state Medicaid program--were determined by using a cross-sectional analysis of insurance claims data. The main outcome measures were the number of enrollees with total annual payments in excess of $25,000 and the contribution of these high-cost enrollees to each health plan's total costs. Forty-one groups of diagnosis and procedure codes representing a combination of acute and chronic conditions were included on the list of carve-out conditions. Pulmonary insufficiency and respiratory failure together accounted for the largest number of high-cost individuals in each health plan. Solid organ and bone marrow transplants, AIDS, and most malignancies that required high-dose chemotherapy were also important. The carve-out list identified more than one third of high-cost individuals enrolled in the Medicaid program, approximately 20% of high-cost managed care enrollees, and 10% of high-cost fee-for-service enrollees. These data confirm that it is possible to identify high-cost individuals in health plans by using a carve-out list. Carving out high-cost patients from capitation risk arrangements may protect patients, physicians, and managed care organizations.
Adult↗
Consumer experiences and provider perceptions of the quality of primary care: implications for managed care.
BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which consumer and provider reports of primary care differ according to particular characteristics of the primary care setting. METHODS: A random sample of consumers was surveyed by telephone in a defined geographic area of Washington, DC, to determine their experiences with care provided to a randomly chosen child. The primary care provider of each respondent was sent a parallel survey. Scores were obtained for each of two subdomains in the four cardinal primary care domains (first contact, longitudinality, comprehensiveness, and coordination) and for three related domains (family centeredness, community orientation, and cultural competence). Differences between settings that did or did not impose limitations on autonomy for referrals and between fee-for-service and capitated settings were ascertained. RESULTS: Both consumers and their providers in settings characterized by high degrees of limitation on physician autonomy or by capitation reported better first-contact accessibility and a greater range of services available than did consumers in settings with low degrees of limitation, or by fee-for-service reimbursements to physicians. Consumers but not providers reported better family centeredness in these settings. Most other differences favored these settings as well, but these were not consistently statistically significant for both providers and consumers in both types of settings. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of primary care services in different settings can be ascertained by using an instrument with demonstrated reliability and convergent validity. Although certain types of settings, in the particular geographic area studied, appear to perform better in several key aspects of the primary care, replication of the study in other areas would be useful judging the performance of the newer types of settings to be superior to more conventional care for general populations.
Child↗
Outcome of acute myocardial infarction according to the specialty of the admitting physician.
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Humans↗
Primary care and health reform in New Zealand.
AIMS: (1) To describe New Zealand's primary care system (2) to compare New Zealand to other Anglo-American members of the OECD with respect to the adequacy of primary care, and (3) to assess the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of New Zealand's system by comparing health spending and health indicators relevant to primary care. METHOD: A cross-national comparison of primary care, health spending and health indicators in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Main outcome measures were health spending measured in purchasing power parties. Health indicators: mean life expectancy in years, years of potential life lost and infant mortality rates. RESULTS: New Zealand's primary care system ranked below the UK, above the USA and similar to Canada and Australia. Favourable characteristics of New Zealand's primary care system were the use of generalists as the predominant type of practitioner and the low proportion of active physicians who were specialists. Compared to the other countries, New Zealand scored poorly for financial that are necessary for the practise of good primary care. New Zealand and the UK had the lowest spending per capita on health care. New Zealand and the USA scored lowest for all three of the health care indicators. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of primary care in New Zealand is limited by barriers to access to care and the intermediate level of practise characteristics essential to primary care. Compared to other AngloAmerican OECD nations, New Zealand has relatively low levels of national health expenditure. In order to improve the quality of primary care, future reform should aim to facilitate access to care, increase the gatekeeping role of primary care physicians, and promote the practise characteristics essential to primary care.
Australia↗
Quality. An elusive goal with a clear path.
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Humans↗
Reform of primary health care: the case of Spain.
Different approaches to health reform are proposed in many countries to overcome inefficiencies in care delivery. This paper assesses an incremental reform initiated in Spain 10 years ago, which sought to improve the efficiency of the entire health system through changes in the organization and delivery of primary care. In this study, aspects of accessibility, comprehensiveness, longitudinality and technical quality of reformed versus unreformed care were assessed for respondents to a household interview survey conducted in the Basque Region of Spain in 1992. According to this study, aspects of care such as longitudinality and technical quality seemed improved with the reform, whereas other aspects such as accessibility and comprehensiveness remained unchanged. The authors conclude that system related characteristics (more associated with access and comprehensiveness) may be impeding the achievement of the goals of the reform and argue that attempts to encourage more autonomy of care delivery may be required.
Efficiency, Organizational↗
The impact of asthma on the health status of adolescents.
OBJECTIVE: To identify a characteristic pattern of health and illness for adolescents with asthma, we compared the health status of teenagers with asthma to those without asthma using a recently developed generic health status instrument, the Child Health and Illness Profile, Adolescent Edition (CHIP-AE). METHODS: This was a cross-sectional survey using a school sample of 3109 teenagers. Participants completed the CHIP-AE during school in northern Baltimore City, rural western Maryland, and rural Arkansas. The health and functioning scores of teens without asthma ("well" group) were compared with those with asthma with and without recent wheezing. RESULTS: Of the 12% who reported that a physician had ever told them they had asthma, 50% had problems with wheezing in the past 28 days. Compared with well teenagers, those with asthma and recent wheezing had lower perceived well-being, more physical and emotional symptoms, greater limitations in activity, more comorbidities, and more negative behaviors that threaten social development. These findings held true in multivariable regression models that controlled for sociodemographics and sites of data collection. Teenagers with asthma without recent wheezing reported a greater number of comorbidities than well teens and showed similar trends in health status as those with recently symptomatic asthma. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple aspects of adolescent health status are affected by asthma, particularly if it is recently symptomatic. These results argue for incorporating a generic health status instrument, such as the CHIP-AE, in studies that document the health needs or outcomes of medical care for populations of teenagers with asthma.
Adolescent↗
Capitation adjustment for pediatric populations.
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Ambulatory Care↗
The future of primary care in a managed care era.
Health care reform in the United States and elsewhere raises many questions about equity and effectiveness of health services. Although the impetus has been cost containment, the reforms have often been justified on the grounds that they will enhance primary care. In this article, health care reform efforts are divided into two types: market-driven, demand-based systems versus systems predicated on meeting population health needs. The two "scenarios" are contrasted with regard to their likely impact on the attainment of primary care characteristics: first-contact care, longitudinality, comprehensive services, and coordination. Since the ultimate outcome of these reforms cannot be predicted, there is compelling need for evaluating them as they proceed.
Cost Control↗
A trial of increased access to primary care.
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Hospitals, Veterans↗