What's New
In invited testimony on March 11, Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means that the next step in health reform is to decide "how to secure insurance coverage and change payment incentives to emphasize value, not volume." She discussed the key strategies and recommendations detailed in the recent report by the Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System, The Path to a High Performance U.S. Health System: A 2020 Vision and the Policies to Pave the Way.
On February 24, Cathy Schoen, a Commonwealth Fund senior vice president, made the case for redesigning health insurance in invited testimony before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. This redesign should "provide affordable coverage for all in a manner that ensures access to health care and financial protection," she said, as well as "a more secure foundation for payment and system reforms." Read more »
Recent Releases
March 12, 2009—In recent months, the international financial system has experienced the most severe turmoil since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In this essay, the Fund's John E. Craig contemplates the implications for private foundations and the constituencies they serve. Read more »
Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes is a group of long-term care providers, caregivers, consumers, and others that has engaged almost half of the nursing homes in the U.S. in its quality improvement efforts. For this episode of New Directions in Health Care: The Commonwealth Fund Podcast, Emily Schifrin talked with the organization leadership and frontline workers to find out what has made the campaign so successful. Read more »
March 10, 2009—This Fund-supported study found that a New York program provides a good public-funding model for establishing electronic health information exchange among health care organizations. Read more »
March 10, 2009—Americans generally want online access to their health information, but a lack of products with real value for consumers may be a primary reason for the slow adoption of personal health records, says James Kahn and colleagues in this Fund-supported study in Health Affairs. Read more »
Web News
WhyNotTheBest.org is a new resource from The Commonwealth Fund, offering comparative information on health care performance for providers, researchers, and other professionals. Users can conduct side-by-side comparisons of 4,500 hospitals nationwide, track performance over time against numerous benchmarks, read case studies of top performers, and download tools to improve health care quality. Look for updated performance data to be added next month, as well as new case studies and other features. Read more »
By registering for My Commonwealth Fund, you will be able to sign up and manage your e-alert subscriptions, publicly comment on select publications and other Web content, and save content to your personal library for easy reference. We hope these new features improve your experience with our site. Read more »