Jeremy C. Green

National Efforts to Improve Door-to-Balloon Time. Results From the Door-to-Balloon Alliance

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine if enrollment in the Door-to-Balloon (D2B) Alliance, a national quality campaign sponsored by the American College of Cardiology and 38 partner organizations, was associated with increased likelihood of patients who received primary percutaneous coronary intervention for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) being treated within 90 min of hospital presentation. BACKGROUND The D2B Alliance, launched in November 2006, sought to achieve the goal of having 75% of patients with STEMI treated within 90 min of hospital presentation. METHODS We conducted a longitudinal study of D2B times in 831 hospitals participating in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) CathPCI Registry, April 1, 2005, to March 31, 2008. RESULTS By March 2008, >75% of patients had D2B times of < or = 90 min, compared with only about one-half of patients with D2B times within 90 min in April 2005. Trends since the launch of the D2B Alliance showed that patients treated in hospitals enrolled in the D2B Alliance for at least 3 months were significantly more likely than patients treated in nonenrolled hospitals to have D2B times within 90 min, although the magnitude of the difference was modest (odds ratio: 1.16; 95% confidence interval: 1.07 to 1.27). CONCLUSIONS The D2B Alliance reached its goal of 75% of patients with STEMI having D2B times within 90 min by 2008.

Long term effects of childhood asthma on adult health

Childhood asthma is a major chronic condition affecting millions of children in this country, yet little is known about its potential long term consequences. In this paper, we estimate the relationship between childhood asthma and several outcomes as a young adult. To overcome many of the methodological issues plaguing earlier research on this topic, we estimate sibling fixed effect models that correct for measurement error using parental reports of asthma status. In our preferred specification, we find substantial long term impacts of childhood asthma on general health status, obesity, and missed work and school days as a young adult. Broadly, our findings contribute to the growing literature in social sciences on the impacts of early life health conditions on later life health and social outcomes and suggest early treatment of asthma may have long-run benefits on young adult health and socioeconomic outcomes.

Need and unmet need for care coordination among children with mental health conditions.

OBJECTIVE: To determine prevalence and correlates of need and unmet need for care coordination in a national sample of children with mental health conditions. METHODS: Using data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, we identified children aged 2 to 17 years with ≥1 mental health condition (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, or depression) who had received ≥2 types of preventive or subspecialty health services in the past year. We defined 2 outcome measures of interest: (1) prevalence of need for care coordination; and (2) prevalence of unmet need for care coordination in those with a need. Logistic regression models were used to estimate associations of clinical, sociodemographic, parent psychosocial, and health care characteristics with the outcome measures. RESULTS: In our sample (N = 7501, representing an estimated 5 750 000 children), the prevalence of having any need for care coordination was 43.2%. Among parents reporting a need for care coordination, the prevalence of unmet need was 41.2%. Higher risk of unmet need for care coordination was associated with child anxiety disorder, parenting stress, lower income, and public or no insurance. Parents reporting social support and receipt of family-centered care had a lower risk of unmet need for care coordination. CONCLUSIONS: Approximately 40% of parents of children with mental health conditions who reported a need for care coordination also reported that their need was unmet. Delivery of family-centered care and enhancing family supports may help to reduce unmet need for care coordination in this vulnerable population.

Standardized data collection practices and the racial/ethnic distribution of hospitalized patients.

Background:Although frequently used to track health care disparities, patient race/ethnicity data collected by hospitals can be unreliable, particularly for smaller minority groups. We sought to determine whether the racial/ethnic distribution of hospitalized patients shifted after implementation of a statewide initiative to standardize data collection practices. Methods:We conducted a difference-in-differences analysis of the State Inpatient Databases to estimate changes in the proportion of patients identified as non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and “other,” before (2005–2006) and after (2008–2009) standardized practices were implemented in New Jersey relative to New York, a state with similar demographics but no changes to data collection. Results:Among 12,552,702 hospital discharges, modest relative changes were noted in the proportion of patients identified as non-Hispanic white [+1.1%; 95% confidence interval (CI): +0.9 to +1.2] and non-Hispanic black (+1.6%; 95% CI: +1.1 to +2.1) in New Jersey that were attributed to its use of standardized data collection practices as compared with New York. Larger relative changes were noted in the proportion of patients identified as Hispanic (−7.1%; 95% CI: −7.8 to −6.4), Asian/Pacific Islander (+26.5%; 95% CI: +25.1 to +27.9), and “other” (−24.6%; 95% CI: −26.4 to −22.8). This pattern was largely consistent in analyses stratified by sex, age, and Major Diagnostic Category. Conclusions:Measurement of health care disparities fundamentally depends on the racial/ethnic categorization of individuals. By redistributing substantial proportions of patients across smaller minority groups, standardized data collection could lead to shifts in estimates of health care disparities for these rapidly growing populations.

Understanding the variation in costs among HIV primary care providers

Abstract The paper uses a hybrid cost model to identify the determinants of cost variation among programs that offer early intervention services to people living with HIV and AIDS in the US. The model combines the effects of input price and output volume measures from traditional economic cost functions with institutional factors based on program and patient characteristics on the cost of providing primary medical care and support services to people living with HIV and AIDS. The impact of economic factors conforms to conventional theory and reveals the potential for cost savings through greater economies of scale and substitutability of low cost for high cost labor inputs. Similarly, programs that use staff more efficiently and share an affiliation with other organizations exhibit lower costs than more labor intensive and non-affiliated providers. However, patient characteristics are equally important determinants of program spending. Minority patients use services less frequently and generate fewer costs, while patients facing fewer barriers to care, such as those with Medicaid coverage, access services more frequently and incur higher costs. Uninsured patients also generate higher costs, but the higher costs associated with this subgroup more likely stem from a lack of continuity in care and, thus, poorer health status and greater healthcare needs when treatment is sought. Injection drug users require less expensive services, but access services more frequently than other risk groups, while patients with an AIDS diagnosis and those who are co-infected with hepatitis C require more program resources. By separately estimating the economic and institutional determinants of program costs, the study highlights the relative importance of factors that are amendable to internal cost control efforts versus those that reflect the resource needs of local communities.

Hospitalization Rates for Acute Myocardial Infarction Among Asian-American Subgroups: Have We Been Underestimating the Problem?

AbstractConcerns about the quality of race/ethnicity data collected by hospitals have limited our understanding of healthcare disparities affecting ethnic minorities in the United States. Using data from the New Jersey State Inpatient Databases and the American Community Survey, we calculated age-adjusted AMI hospitalization rates for Asian-American subgroups before (2005–2006) and after (2008–2009) New Jersey hospitals implemented standardized practices to collect more accurate granular race/ethnicity data from patients. Rates were reported per 100,000 persons for Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese subgroups. AMI hospitalization rates increased for all subgroups except Vietnamese following implementation of the New Jersey program; increases were statistically significant for Asian Indian, Chinese, and Korean subgroups. Rates of hospitalization for AMI increased significantly for multiple Asian-American subgroups following implementation of the New Jersey program. National population health metrics for Asian-American subgroups may be prone to significant underestimation without widespread utilization of similar practices.

Pediatric screening urinalysis: a difference-in-differences analysis of how a 2007 change in guidelines impacted use.

BackgroundPractice guidelines can promote higher-quality care, yet they are inconsistently adopted. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to discontinue routine screening urinalysis in children.MethodsUsing data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, we used a difference-in-differences approach to estimate visit-level screening urinalysis proportions before (2005-2006, n = 1,247) and after (2008-2009, n = 1,772) the 2007 AAP recommendation. We compared visits by children 4-18 years old to visits by young adults aged 19-32. Analyses were adjusted for continuous patient age, patient race/ethnicity, physician specialty, and stratified by patient gender and visit setting.ResultsThe 2007 recommendation was associated with no significant change in adjusted visit-level screening urinalysis proportions in child visits (20.4% to 22.5%) compared to an increase in young adult visits (20.1% to 27.0%) – a differential impact of -4.8 percentage points (95% Confidence Interval [CI] -9.0, -0.5). In private practices, visit proportions differentially decreased by 7.6 percentage points (95% CI -13.7, -1.5) in female children and by 0.5 percentage points (95% CI -10.6, 9.6) in male children. In community health centers, visit proportions differentially decreased by 17.4 percentage points (95% CI -27.9, -6.8) in female children and by 33.5 percentage points (95% CI -47.4, -19.7) in male children.ConclusionsA 2007 recommendation to discontinue routine screening urinalysis in children was associated with no change in use in child visits relative to an increase in use in adult visits. Overall, nearly one-quarter of child visits still included screening urinalysis.