INTRODUÇÃO: A importância de se avaliar sistemas e serviços de saúde: aumento de gastos, avanços tecnológicos, envelhecimento da população, deficiências com as práticas na assistência, iniquidades na alocação de recursos, necessidade de prestação de contas aos órgãos controladores e à sociedade, melhorias e reformas no sistema e serviços de saúde. A avaliação de desempenho de serviços de saúde demonstra parte importante do desempenho do sistema de saúde, permitindo comparações de desempenho de processos e resultados, à medida que os serviços avaliados tenham articulações entre si, e que o desfecho tenha relações com todos os níveis da atenção avaliados. OBJETIVO: avaliar o desempenho dos serviços públicos de saúde de um município paulista de médio porte, no período de 2008 a 2015, quanto a resultados de qualidade nas dimensões do acesso, da efetividade e da adequação de serviços. MATERIAL E MÉTODO: estudo exploratório, com análise descritiva de dados quantitativos. Utilizados indicadores de saúde dos sistemas de informação do Ministério da Saúde, e populacionais do IBGE. Foram distribuídos nas dimensões do acesso, efetividade e adequação, conforme modelo do PROADESS - Metodologia de Avaliação do Desempenho do Sistema de Saúde; para a interpretação do desempenho foi realizada comparação entre o nível municipal e outros três níveis (estado de São Paulo, região Sudeste e Brasil). RESULTADOS: acesso: taxa de internação, cirurgia de revascularização, angioplastia e imunização por tetra/pentavalente demonstraram melhor desempenho dos serviços de saúde municipais em relação aos demais níveis; cobertura Estratégia Saúde da Família e vacinação do idoso contra a gripe demonstraram pior desempenho, porém com tendência de melhora ao longo do tempo. Adequação: consultas de pré-natal do município com melhor desempenho em relação aos demais níveis, e mais próximas do preconizado; histerectomia e partos cesáreos com pior desempenho. Efetividade: mortes em internações por infarto agudo do miocárdio com melhor desempenho para o município; internações por Condições Sensíveis à Atenção Básica, sífilis congênita em menor de um ano e amputação de membros inferiores em diabéticos com pior desempenho municipal em relação aos outros três níveis do estudo. CONCLUSÃO: quanto ao acesso, no conjunto dos indicadores o desempenho foi positivo, com melhor resultado para a atenção hospitalar em relação à atenção básica; quanto à adequação, o desempenho foi desfavorável ao município em comparação com os demais níveis, assim como na efetividade o desempenho municipal também foi inferior aos outros três níveis pesquisados, demonstrando fragilidade na atenção básica da assistência. / INTRODUCTION: The importance of evaluating health systems and services: increased expenditures, technological advances, aging of the population, deficiencies with assistance practices, iniquities in resource allocation, accountability to controlling organs and society, improvements and reforms in the health system and services. The performance evaluation of health services demonstrates an important part of the performance of the health system, allowing comparisons of performance of processes and results, as the services evaluated have articulations among them, and that the outcome has relations with all levels of attention evaluated. OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the performance of public health services in a medium-sized São Paulo municipality, from 2008 to 2015, in terms of quality, access, effectiveness and adequacy of services. MATERIAL AND METHOD: exploratory study, with descriptive analysis of quantitative data. Health indicators of the information systems of the Ministry of Health and of the IBGE population were used. They were distributed in the dimensions of access, effectiveness and adequacy, according to the model of the PROADESS - Methodology for Evaluation of Health System Performance; for the interpretation of the performance was carried out comparison between the municipal level and other three levels (state of São Paulo, Southeast region and Brazil). RESULTS: access: hospitalization rate, revascularization surgery, angioplasty and tetra / pentavalent immunization demonstrated better performance of the municipal health services in relation to the other levels; coverage Family Health Strategy and vaccination of the elderly against influenza showed worse performance, but with a tendency to improve over time. Adequacy: prenatal consultations of the municipality with better performance in relation to the other levels, and closer to that recommended; hysterectomy and cesarean delivery with worse performance. Effectiveness: deaths in hospitalizations due to acute myocardial infarction with better performance for the municipality; hospitalizations for conditions sensitive to primary care, congenital syphilis in less than one year and amputation of lower limbs in diabetics with worse municipal performance in relation to the other three levels of the study. CONCLUSION: with regard to access, in the set of indicators, performance was positive, with a better result for hospital care in relation to primary care; in terms of adequacy, the performance was unfavorable to the municipality in comparison to the other levels, as well as in the effectiveness, the municipal performance was also inferior to the other three levels surveyed, showing weakness in the basic assistance care.

The purpose of this study was to describe the perceived barriers to obtaining psychiatric treatment at the Johnson City Community Health Center. The context of the study was a rural area in Eastern Tennessee. Five patients with confirmed DSM-IV mental health diagnoses were recruited during treatment and interviewed at the Johnson City Community Health Center after their scheduled appointments with a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (MHNP). The semi-structured interview focused on perceived barriers to obtaining treatment, perceptions of treatment received, and perceived availability of treatment. From those interviews, two themes were identified and each of which had two sub-themes identified: Realities of Treatment with the sub-themes of Therapy-Related Realities and Logistics Realities, The Way It Is with the sub-themes of Take Care of It Myself and Don’t Want People to Know. The findings indicate that there is a duality of positive and negative aspects of treatment at Johnson City Community Health Center. Understanding the needs and perceptions of those with psychiatric diagnoses will assist all staff and mental health providers in developing programs that are better suited for those with psychiatric diagnoses receiving treatment from Johnson City Community Health Center.

Shifting payment models from fee for service (FFS) to pay for performance (P4P) have fundamentally changed the environment of healthcare administration in the United States (Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), 2011). Due to this shift, there has been an increase in demand for tracking and improving quality measures to ensure not only patient safety, but optimization of utilization. Constraints on resources and capacity, coupled with increasing safety measures has developed a new study of patient flow (Miró, Sánchez, Espinosa, et al., 2003). Decreasing patient room turnover times has the potential to maximize utilization while ensuring patient safety and quality (Dyrda, 2012). LEAN and A3 Methodology were applied to create a process improvement initiative at a 500-bed regional medical center (RMC). Using a Rapid Improvement Event (RIE), efforts were made to identify gaps and improve processes to address issues which prevented patients from being in the right place, for the appropriate amount of time, and patient rooms cleaned in a timely manner. These gaps prevented adequate patient flow in the RMC. After tracking the implemented improvements for a year, the RMC ceased following the newly designed process. This study examines the original RIE, factors that changed since the event, and additional process improvements made two years post-RIE.

Purpose: Practice-based research networks (PBRN) seek to shorten the gap between research and application in primary patient care settings. Inclusion of community pharmacies in primary care PBRNs is relatively unexplored. Such a PBRN model could improve care coordination and community-based research, especially in rural and underserved areas. The objectives of this study were to: 1) evaluate rural Appalachian community pharmacy key informants’ perceptions of PBRNs and practice-based research; 2) explore key informants’ perceptions of perceived applicability of practice-based research domains; and 3) explore pharmacy key informant interest in PBRN participation. Methods: The sample consisted of community pharmacies within city limits of all Appalachian Research Network (AppNET) PBRN communities in South Central Appalachia. A descriptive, cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted from November 2013 to February 2014. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to examine associations between key informant and practice characteristics, and PBRN interest and perceptions. Findings: A 47.8% response rate was obtained. Most key informants (88%) were very or somewhat interested in participating in AppNET. Enrichment of patient care (82.8%), improved relationships with providers in the community (75.9%), and professional development opportunities (69.0%) were perceived by more than two-thirds of respondents to be very beneficial outcomes of PBRN participation. Respondents ranked time constraints (63%) and workflow disruptions (20%) as the biggest barriers to PBRN participation. Conclusion: Key informants in rural Appalachian community pharmacies indicated interest in PBRN participation. Integration of community pharmacies into existing rural PBRNs could advance community level care coordination and promote improved health outcomes in rural and underserved areas. Type: Original Research

Healthcare big data are a growing source of real-world data with which to identify and validate medications with repurposing potential. Previously, we developed a claims-based workflow to evaluate medications with potential to treat stimulant use disorders. In order to test the workflow, the framework was applied in the context of opioid use disorders (OUDs), for which there are medications with known efficacy. Using the Truven Marketscan Commercial Claims Database, a nested case-control analysis was conducted to determine the association between OUD medications (buprenorphine, naltrexone) and remission. Cases were defined as enrollees with a remission diagnosis and matched (1:4) to controls (individuals without remission) using incidence density sampling, with age group, sex, region, and index year as additional matching variables. After adjusting for behavioral health visits, polysubstance use disorders, and psychiatric disorders using conditional logistic regression, the odds of OUD medication exposure were 3.8 (99% confidence interval: 3.0 – 4.9) times higher in cases than controls. Evaluation of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (e.g. lisinopril) as a negative control revealed no significant association between the medication and remission. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using administrative health claims data to evaluate the effectiveness of medications to treat substance use disorders.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is inversely related to health status. Disparities in health status among races and ethnic groups are partly attributable to differences in SES, but the indirect pathways by which SES may influence health status are not widely studied. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data, this dissertation examined the pathways by which SES, via social, psychological, and behavioral factors predicted physical impairment and overnight hospitalization, and asked whether these indirect relationships differed by race/ethnicity. The HRS is a nationally representative multistage area probability sample administered biennially to respondents over the age of 51 and their spouses. Data collected between 2002 and 2010, covering five waves of the original HRS cohort born between the years 1931 and 1941, were used. Two analysis approaches, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Reconstructability Analysis (RA), were used. Adjustments for the complex survey design were made in the SEM analysis, whereas, data were matched for the RA method using propensity scores. Results of the SEM analyses supported most of the hypothesized indirect relationships between SES variables and physical impairment via social and psychological factors, but the indirect effect of SES on physical impairment via behavioral factors was weak. Multiple group analyses of path equality using nested chi-square tests indicated that the indirect effect of SES on physical impairment status did not vary by race/ethnicity. Social, psychological and behavioral factors were weakly related to overnight hospitalization, and SES was not indirectly related to overnight hospitalization. While these results supported several hypothesized indirect relationships between SES variables and physical health status, the indirect effect sizes were small. However, because this study examined predictive paths across groups rather than compare mean differences, and because indirect effects are products of individual path coefficients, small effect sizes are not uncommon in mediation analysis. Moreover, over a lifetime, small effects may gradually add up increasing group differences in health status with greater benefits accruing to higher SES individuals via social and psychological factors, as observed in this study. The RA results showed that indirect relationships between SES and physical impairment were similar across races/ethnicities for identical variables with a few exceptions. In several cases, however, selected SES variables related to social and psychological variables were different for different groups. Cross-sectional indirect relationships were stronger than longitudinal indirect relationships. As in the SEM study, SES was not related to physical impairment via behavioral factors; and, across groups, SES was also not related to overnight hospitalization either directly or via social, psychological or behavioral factors. Variables predicting physical impairment exhibited differences across groups; these differences were detected because RA, unlike SEM, used disaggregated social, psychological and behavioral factors. Where predictive variables overlapped, the effects of identical independent variable (IV) states on physical impairment were similar across groups with a few exceptions. In summary, both the SEM and RA results indicated that SES was indirectly related to physical impairment via social and psychological factors, and results from both methods also showed that SES was not indirectly related to overnight hospitalization via these factors. SEM did not find that these indirect effects varied by race/ethnicity; RA found a few differences.

Hospital-based palliative care services aim to streamline medical care for patients with chronic and potentially life-limiting illnesses by focusing on individual patient needs, efficient use of hospital resources, and providing guidance for patients, patients’ families and clinical providers toward making optimal decisions concerning a patient’s care. This study examined the nature of palliative care provision in U.S. hospitals and its impact on selected organizational and patient outcomes, including hospital costs, length of stay, in-hospital mortality, and transfer to hospice. Hospital costs and length of stay are viewed as important economic indicators. Specifically, lower hospital costs may increase a hospital’s profit margin and shorter lengths of stay can enable patient turnover and efficiency of care. Higher rates of hospice transfers and lower in-hospital mortality may be considered positive outcomes from a patient perspective, as the majority of patients prefer to die at home or outside of the hospital setting. Several data sources were utilized to obtain information about patient, hospital, and county characteristics; patterns of hospitals’ palliative care provision; and patients’ hospital costs, length of stay, in-hospital mortality, and transfer to hospice (if a patient survived hospitalization). The study sample consisted of 3,763,339 patients; 348 urban, general, short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals; and 111 counties located in six states over a 5-year study (2007-2011). Hospital-based palliative care provision was measured by the presence of three palliative care services, including inpatient palliative care consultation services (PAL), inpatient palliative care units (IPAL), and hospice programs (HOSPC). Derived from Institutional Theory, Resource Dependence Theory, and Donabedian’s Structure Process-Outcome framework, 13 hypotheses were tested using a hierarchical (generalized) linear modeling approach. The study findings suggested that hospital size was associated with a higher probability of hospital-based palliative care provision. Conversely, the presence of palliative care services through a hospital’s health system, network, or joint venture was associated with a lower probability of hospital-based palliative care provision. The study findings also indicated that hospitals with an IPAL or HOSPC incurred lower hospital costs, whereas hospitals with PAL incurred higher hospital costs. The presence of PAL, IPAL, and HOSPC was generally associated with a lower probability of in-hospital mortality and transfer to hospice. Finally, the effects of hospital-based palliative care services on length of stay were mixed, and further research is needed to understand this relationship.

This study presented an empirical analysis of the key market, regulatory, organizational, operational and financial factors associated with hospital entry into joint venture (JV) arrangements with Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) as examined through the framework of resource dependency theory complimented with neo-institutional theory. This study used a cross sectional design to examine hospitals that entered into a joint venture arrangement with ASCs in 2006 and 2007. The data for this study were drawn from five main sources: the American Hospital Association Annual Survey (AHA), the Area Resource File (ARF), the CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) minimum dataset, the National Legislative Assembly Website and the CM case-mix files. Descriptive analysis and multivariate logistic regression were performed to examine the association of various factors in this study. The study found that market factors such as unemployment rate and percentage of elderly were strongly associated with the hospitals decision to joint venture with ASCs. Also organizational size (measured by bed size) was a significant factor in these decisions. Other factors which showed a marginal significance were Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, number of ASCs, certificate of need laws, ownership status, and operating expense per adjusted discharge of the hospital. This research project sheds light on joint venture arrangements between hospitals and ASCs at a very opportune time. In light of the new Health Reform Legislation, studying hospital-ASC joint ventures is very important. For hospitals and ASCs, and their collaborative interests such as joint ventures, Accountable Care Organizations (ACO’s) could either provide incentives to help improve quality of care to patients or stint on needed care by making them focus narrowly on higher margin services (Fisher and Shortell 2010; Shortell and Casalino 2010). Since policy measures should encourage the first and not the second outcome, it is important to have a transparent performance measurement system that can win the confidence of the provider organizations such as hospitals and ASCs. Lacking which, it may discourage joint venture arrangements between hospitals and ASCs in future.

African Americans are adversely affected by Type 2 diabetes at a greater rate than their European American counterparts; however, research on the effects of Type 2 diabetes on African Americans is limited. Lifestyle modifications that include the incorporation of physical activity and dietary changes can help patients with Type 2 diabetes better manage their disease and improve their overall quality of health. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of African Americans with Type 2 diabetes who incorporated these self-management behaviors, discerning if they had improved health and quality of life. The self-efficacy framework was applied to understand the research problem and interpret study results. An in-depth interview protocol was used to explore participants' perspectives and lived experiences in disease management. Interview transcripts and participant data were analyzed using a thematic-content-analysis approach. According to study findings, participants experienced physical activity and dietary changes, and their self-efficacy directly correlated with their experience of positive changes in their health status. Providing programs that support the adoption of healthy lifestyles for this population will help mitigate the later effects of diabetic complications. Implications for social change include the provision of strategies that will help in formulating programs and policies that will reduce diabetic complications and deaths due to complications.

Approximately 35.1% of live births for the state of Georgia were delivered by the cesarean delivery procedure with significant variation among hospitals. The purpose of this research was to develop a population-based hospital profiling methodology for study of the cesarean delivery procedure. This was a retrospective, observational design, using a 2012 linked dataset that included maternity deliveries from all nonfederal hospitals. The research was guided by Robson 10 Group Classification System, propensity score methodologies, and ethical precepts, for the development of hospital profiles and the study of variations in the cesarean delivery procedure. Key research questions aimed to determine whether hospital profiling methodologies differed according to risk adjustment methods and statistical techniques. Propensity score matching with stratification methods aimed to determine whether there were differences in patient treatment effects on the cesarean delivery outcome. Findings suggested there was a significant difference in hospital ranks and model effects according to the statistical technique and the risk adjustment methods applied. Propensity score matching with stratification demonstrated an increased risk of the cesarean delivery procedure across strata, with the majority of high risk patients situated in the 90th percentile ranges and questionable utilization practice among other strata. Applying profiling methodologies at the facility and population level could advance statewide quality improvement programs for the timely reduction in the variation of inappropriate utilization of the cesarean delivery procedure.