quality
No CT hospitals make US News 2018 Honor Roll
No Connecticut hospital made US News’s Best Hospitals Honor Roll or their Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll this year. Four are nationally ranked in at least one specialty or performance area – Yale-New Haven (#1 in CT), Hartford Hospital (#2), St. Francis (#3) and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. US News ranks hospitals based on patient…
Read MoreCTNJ: Capitation vs. fee for service: Which team are you on?
is a sharp divide within Connecticut’s healthcare community over how to pay for care that’s as fervent as the Yankees vs. Red Sox split. Some believe that capitation is the holy grail, but others believe that fee for service isn’t the problem and isn’t broken. Read more
Read MoreMedicaid update: hints of new data and promises of more, call center wait times still long, but behavioral health progress
There was good and bad news at Friday’s Medicaid council meeting. Call center wait times are down to 85 minutes but more callers are giving up. There are signs of hope in fixing the new transportation problem and DSS has imposed sanctions (maybe a connection there), but concerns remain. But in good news, we heard…
Read MoreCTNJ op-ed — Facts, and data, are stubborn things
Big data is revolutionizing healthcare. The ability to collect reams of detailed information about how care is provided, how much it costs, and then to link that back to effectiveness and outcomes is powerful. New data tools offer the potential to improve individual and collective decision-making that targets just the right resources to the right…
Read More31 ways to save on healthcare in Connecticut’s budget
Connecticut’s state budget is facing future deficits and health spending is a large share of the budget. The state now spends $3.8 billion between Medicaid and the state employee health plan to cover about a million state residents. Health care spending outside the state budget is also growing. Connecticut has the sixth highest per capita…
Read MoreMedicaid update: Quality was rising through 2016, raising concerns about PCMH+
Friday’s MAPOC meeting focused on Medicaid quality and access information from CHNCT, DSS’s administrative contractor for the program. Across the 12 (of over 100) quality measures chosen, there was modest but sustained improvement from 2014 through 2016. However community health center performance consistently lags behind other PMCH practices across the quality measures. Of particular concern…
Read MoreCT and surrounding states provide better than average quality care to Medicaid members
CMS has published a new Medicaid/CHIP scorecard to promote accountability and transparency in states’ programs. The site allows comparisons of state enrollment, eligibility, and access to relevant documents (state plan amendments and waivers) and expenditures. Most interesting is comparisons by state across adult and child health quality metrics for 2016. Like our neighboring states, CT…
Read MoreCTNJ: Healthcare questions for Connecticut’s Next Governor
How will Connecticut’s next governor fix the state’s healthcare system? It’s a big job but they will have a lot more leverage and power than many appreciate. Read more
Read MoreUpdated data from DSS call center – wait times are 107 and 105 minutes, not 2 minutes
In response to a Freedom of Information request, advocates learned last week that 56% of callers waiting to talk to a human at DSS’s benefits center chose to hang up in both March and April of this year. That’s probably because average wait times for the benefits center were 107 and 105 minutes, in March…
Read MoreState Scorecard finds CT does fairly well, but poorly in Avoidable Hospital Use and Cost
The latest Commonwealth Fund State Scorecard finds CT’s performance across our health system ninth among states, unchanged from last year. While good, we can do much better given our rankings in personal income, education and overall high health status. We are 32nd among states in Avoidable Hospital Use and Costs, down by three from last…
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