Stats & Data
US News: CT is 3rd best in US for healthcare
Based on surveys of state residents on their priorities for state government and health data, Connecticut is third best among states for healthcare, our highest ranking among categories. Healthcare was equally weighted between access (#3 among states), quality (#21), and public health (#6). The subtopics for each health category are: Access Quality Public health Adults…
Read MoreBook Club – Super Forecasting: The Art and Science of Predicting
The title makes a big promise, but this book delivers. The book starts with examples through history of “experts” who were followed, even when evidence they were wrong was obvious. Healthcare is full of these examples, and the authors cite a few. In 2005, Phillip Tetlock published a very large 20-year study measuring the accuracy…
Read MoreFrom 2011 to 2022, CT hospital budgets devoted 12% to administration labor and 30% to direct patient care labor
Download the brief Download the data Parsing the latest data from NASHP’s Hospital Cost Tool finds that in 2022, Connecticut’s acute care hospitals averaged almost 32% of their budgets on direct patient care labor and just under 12% on labor costs for administration, which includes management, administration, and payments to their larger health system (called…
Read MoreCT middle of the pack for doctors
Connecticut ranks 29th in a new analysis on the Best and Worst States for Doctors by Wallet Hub. Physicians are seventeen of the twenty highest paid US workers. Connecticut tied for 45th worst for the highest malpractice award payouts. We rank 15th in our Medical Environment, which includes the quality and safety of hospital care,…
Read MoreConnecticut health care coverage continues slow shift from private to public coverage
Download the report The latest numbers from the US Census on US health coverage in 2022 found that, as in the past, most Connecticut residents are covered through an employer-sponsored plan. Publicly-funded Medicare and Medicaid each cover about one in five Connecticut residents. While employer-sponsored coverage has slowly declined since 2008, public programs have grown,…
Read MoreCT ranks ninth worst in ED wait times
A new analysis by Becker’s Hospital Review of CMS data finds that patients wait an average of 186 minutes to be seen in a Connecticut emergency room. The national median was 162 minutes. The study covered April 2022 through March 2023. Connecticut hospitals varied considerably in average wait times from 98 minutes at Lawrence &…
Read MoreMaking it work: Connecting medical and social care in Waterbury
As healthcare costs skyrocket, policymakers are searching for ways to improve the social drivers of poor health with little success. The problem is that the medical system has all the money, while community services manage on shoestrings, and they don’t connect with each other. Some innovators in Connecticut are doing the work to connect the…
Read MoreCT smoking costs total $4.9 million over a lifetime
A new analysis by Nerd Wallet finds that smokers in Connecticut cost an extra $4.9 million over a lifetime or $102,883 per year on average, the 4th highest rate in the US. Only smokers in New York, the District of Columbia, and Maryland have higher costs. Costs include not only out-of-pocket costs for cigarettes, but…
Read MoreCT again among healthiest states overall, but with big areas of concern
Connecticut ranked 4th healthiest among states in this year’s America’s Health Ranking, from the United Health Foundation. We were the best state in climate policies, childhood immunizations, and adult dental visits. But we were in the bottom on other indicators. Connecticut is in a very healthy region of the US, with New Hampshire (#1), Massachusetts…
Read MoreNo evidence to justify price increases for eight of top 10 most costly drugs
ICER’s latest Unsupported Price Increase report from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review finds that, last year, eight of the ten most costly drugs in the US that raised net prices well over the rate of general inflation, had no new clinical evidence of effectiveness to justify the increases. The increases on just these…
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