Interim Report of the Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Health Care: Preliminary Committee Observations is designed to provide the committee's preliminary observations for the 113th Congress as it considers further Medicare reform. This report contains only key preliminary observations related primarily to the committee's commissioned analyses of Medicare Parts A (Hospital Insurance program), B (Supplementary Medical Insurance program) and D (outpatient prescription drug benefit), complemented by other empirical investigations. It does not contain any observations related to the committee's commissioned analyses of the commercial insurer population, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, which will be presented in the committee's final report after completion of quality-control activities. This interim report excludes conclusions or recommendations related to the committee's consideration of the geographic value index or other payment reforms designed to promote highvalue care. Additional analyses are forthcoming, which will influence the committee's deliberations. These analyses include an exploration of how Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) and commercial spending, utilization, and quality vary compared with, and possibly are influenced by, Medicare Parts A and B spending, utilization, and quality. The committee also is assessing potential biases that may be inherent to Medicare and commercial claims-based measures of health status. Based on this new evidence and continued review of the literature, the committee will confirm the accuracy of the observations presented in this interim report and develop final conclusions and recommendations, which will be published in the committee's final report.

Interim Report of the Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Health Care: Preliminary Committee Observations is designed to provide the committee's preliminary observations for the 113th Congress as it considers further Medicare reform. This report contains only key preliminary observations related primarily to the committee's commissioned analyses of Medicare Parts A (Hospital Insurance program), B (Supplementary Medical Insurance program) and D (outpatient prescription drug benefit), complemented by other empirical investigations. It does not contain any observations related to the committee's commissioned analyses of the commercial insurer population, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, which will be presented in the committee's final report after completion of quality-control activities. This interim report excludes conclusions or recommendations related to the committee's consideration of the geographic value index or other payment reforms designed to promote highvalue care. Additional analyses are forthcoming, which will influence the committee's deliberations. These analyses include an exploration of how Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) and commercial spending, utilization, and quality vary compared with, and possibly are influenced by, Medicare Parts A and B spending, utilization, and quality. The committee also is assessing potential biases that may be inherent to Medicare and commercial claims-based measures of health status. Based on this new evidence and continued review of the literature, the committee will confirm the accuracy of the observations presented in this interim report and develop final conclusions and recommendations, which will be published in the committee's final report.

Interim Report of the Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Health Care: Preliminary Committee Observations is designed to provide the committee's preliminary observations for the 113th Congress as it considers further Medicare reform. This report contains only key preliminary observations related primarily to the committee's commissioned analyses of Medicare Parts A (Hospital Insurance program), B (Supplementary Medical Insurance program) and D (outpatient prescription drug benefit), complemented by other empirical investigations. It does not contain any observations related to the committee's commissioned analyses of the commercial insurer population, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, which will be presented in the committee's final report after completion of quality-control activities. This interim report excludes conclusions or recommendations related to the committee's consideration of the geographic value index or other payment reforms designed to promote high value care. Additional analyses are forthcoming, which will influence the committee's deliberations. These analyses include an exploration of how Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) and commercial spending, utilization, and quality vary compared with, and possibly are influenced by, Medicare Parts A and B spending, utilization, and quality. The committee also is assessing potential biases that may be inherent to Medicare and commercial claims-based measures of health status. Based on this new evidence and continued review of the literature, the committee will confirm the accuracy of the observations presented in this interim report and develop final conclusions and recommendations, which will be published in the committee's final report.--Résumé de l'éditeur.

Health care in the United States is more expensive than in other developed countries, costing $2.7 trillion in 2011, or 17.9 percent of the national gross domestic product. Increasing costs strain budgets at all levels of government and threaten the solvency of Medicare, the nation's largest health insurer. At the same time, despite advances in biomedical science, medicine, and public health, health care quality remains inconsistent. In fact, underuse, misuse, and overuse of various services often put patients in danger. Many efforts to improve this situation are focused on Medicare, which mainly pays practitioners on a fee-for-service basis and hospitals on a diagnoses-related group basis, which is a fee for a group of services related to a particular diagnosis. Research has long shown that Medicare spending varies greatly in different regions of the country even when expenditures are adjusted for variation in the costs of doing business, meaning that certain regions have much higher volume and/or intensity of services than others. Further, regions that deliver more services do not appear to achieve better health outcomes than those that deliver less. Variation in Health Care Spending investigates geographic variation in health care spending and quality for Medicare beneficiaries as well as other populations, and analyzes Medicare payment policies that could encourage high-value care. This report concludes that regional differences in Medicare and commercial health care spending and use are real and persist over time. Furthermore, there is much variation within geographic areas, no matter how broadly or narrowly these areas are defined. The report recommends against adoption of a geographically based value index for Medicare payments, because the majority of health care decisions are made at the provider or health care organization level, not by geographic units. Rather, to promote high value services from all providers, Medicare and Medicaid Services should continue to test payment reforms that offer incentives to providers to share clinical data, coordinate patient care, and assume some financial risk for the care of their patients. Medicare covers more than 47 million Americans, including 39 million people age 65 and older and 8 million people with disabilities. Medicare payment reform has the potential to improve health, promote efficiency in the U.S. health care system, and reorient competition in the health care market around the value of services rather than the volume of services provided. The recommendations of Variation in Health Care Spending are designed to help Medicare and Medicaid Services encourage providers to efficiently manage the full range of care for their patients, thereby increasing the value of health care in the United States.

Healthcare Changes Reach Main Street: A Call to Action for Physicians provides guidance, examples, and information on processes and time lines for physicians based on the implementation of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) that was established in 2010. This volume focuses on how geriatricians and other healthcare professionals can be engaged in responding to the roll-out of the ACA in their communities, and through this engagement assume leadership roles in local hospitals, healthcare organizations, and medical societies to advance quality improvement and new models of care for older adults. In-depth chapters provide an update on quality improvement efforts at the state level, as well as changes in Medicaid financing and the significant impact this will have for older adults, particularly dual-eligibles. Many elements of the ACA are yet to be rolled out and many healthcare decisions are yet to be made. Healthcare Changes Reach Main Street: A Call to Action for Physicians will guide healthcare decision makers and help them to play a leadership role in advancing quality care for older adults in our changing healthcare environment.​

With the advent of electronic medical records years ago and the increasing capabilities of computers, our healthcare systems are sitting on growing mountains of data. Not only does the data grow from patient volume but the type of data we store is also growing exponentially. Practical Predictive Analytics and Decisioning Systems for Medicine provides research tools to analyze these large amounts of data and addresses some of the most pressing issues and challenges where data integrity is compromised: patient safety, patient communication, and patient information. Through the use of predictive analytic models and applications, this book is an invaluable resource to predict more accurate outcomes to help improve quality care in the healthcare and medical industries in the most cost–efficient manner.Practical Predictive Analytics and Decisioning Systems for Medicine provides the basics of predictive analytics for those new to the area and focuses on general philosophy and activities in the healthcare and medical system. It explains why predictive models are important, and how they can be applied to the predictive analysis process in order to solve real industry problems. Researchers need this valuable resource to improve data analysis skills and make more accurate and cost-effective decisions. - Includes models and applications of predictive analytics why they are important and how they can be used in healthcare and medical research - Provides real world step-by-step tutorials to help beginners understand how the predictive analytic processes works and to successfully do the computations - Demonstrates methods to help sort through data to make better observations and allow you to make better predictions

This report helps policy makers better understand the issues and challenges around geographic variations in health care provision and considers the policy options.