Book Club: Everything you need to know to understand, and fact check, data claims

The pandemic has placed us all in a crash course on health claims, science and data – what we know and what we don’t know. It can be confusing and scary. The Art of Statistics: How to Learn from Data by David Spiegelhalter is here to help. The book describes how statistics and probability can…

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Share your ideas to support Connecticut health care coordination, access, and quality

The state is rushing to implement an expensive Health Information Exchange to access $48 million before a federal deadline. The state Office of Health Strategy (OHS) is moving forward very quickly despite concerns raised by consumers and providers about selling access to identifiable patient records to insurers and ACOs, privacy rights, the capacity of the…

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WalletHub – CT third worst state for doctors

According to WalletHub’s latest rankings, Connecticut ranks 49th among states and DC for physician practice. Nationally, physician is the highest paying job but new doctors leave medical school with $194,000 in student debt on average. As we all may be relying on physicians and other healthcare providers during this crisis, remember that March 30th is…

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Lessons from SIM: Advice from Independent Advocates

Download the full responses here Connecticut’s latest attempt to reform our health system, SIM, ended last month. Despite $45 million in federal dollars, SIM didn’t accomplish much. It was mired in controversy and criticism from across the state’s healthcare landscape. SIM followed several past failed attempts to reform Connecticut’s health system. We asked independent consumer…

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Help us improve consumer advocacy in Connecticut

With support from the CT Health Foundation, the CT Health Policy Project is updating our online Health Advocacy Toolbox. The Toolbox was created twenty years ago to give individual consumers and community organizations in Connecticut tools to effectively engage in health policy advocacy at the state level. Too often motivated consumers, especially from underserved communities,…

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Five healthcare issues to follow in 2020

What Connecticut can do in an election year, with a tight budget, in an unsettled economy, and Washington in gridlock Download the details ACOs and provider financial risk Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are large and growing systems that touch every aspect of healthcare. They make money by reducing their patients’ care costs. Unlike insurers, ACOs…

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Healthcare workforce growing faster than rest of employment

In good news for healthcare workers, from September 2018 to 2019, Connecticut healthcare employment grew by 1.75%, or 3.8 times faster than total non-farm employment. One in eight Connecticut workers is employed in healthcare. Healthcare grew even faster nationally, by 2.66% vs. 1.50% for all workers. One in six US workers is employed in healthcare.…

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Public comment open for CT health planning data

The state Department of Public Health is in the midst of planning for improving the health of every Connecticut resident in 2025. DPH regularly refreshes their plan through a very thoughtful process that is a model of inclusiveness and data-driven policymaking, especially for Connecticut. Other agencies should take note. Right now, the draft State Health…

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Housing community explores successful CT collaborations to promote health

Over 300 Connecticut affordable housing stakeholders joined Governor Lamont and other speakers at the Affordable Housing Alliance’s 30th annual conference last week. The Governor explained his focus on affordable housing by relating a conversation with a young bus rider in New Haven who’d been homeless as a child. With help from housing care managers, he…

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CT Health Policy Project’s 20th Anniversary: Progress, but lots of challenges ahead

Read the report Since 1999, when the CT Health Policy Project was founded, Connecticut’s healthcare landscape has changed in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Costs are rising faster than our economy is growing, and those costs are falling disproportionately on consumers. Experts are predicting another recession and it’s unclear if Connecticut’s healthcare landscape is ready.…

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