A comprehensive package of health insurance, provider payment, and health system reforms could guarantee affordable coverage, improve health outcomes, and slow the growth of health spending by $3 trillion by the end of the next decade, according to an analysis released February 19 by The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. Read more »
When physicians use health information technology to its full potential, the result is fewer deaths, fewer complications, and lower health care costs, according to the first study to directly measure physicians' use of health IT in a hospital setting. Read more »
With unemployment at its highest level in years, a Commonwealth Fund analysis finds that only a small proportion of laid-off workers—9 percent—purchases health insurance coverage under the COBRA law, which allows laid-off workers to retain their employer-based coverage but requires them to pay both the employer and employee shares of the insurance premium. Read more »
An analysis of health information technology deployment in seven industrialized countries finds that physicians' adoption of health IT is highly variable, with the United States lagging well behind the other countries. Read more »
"As the nation turns to the issue of reforming our health insurance system, it is important to address simultaneously how we organize and deliver health services--to ensure that we are obtaining the best possible health outcomes for Americans and the most value for the money we spend on health care," Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions at a hearing held on Jan. 29. Read more »