Health Information Technology Adoption in the Emergency Department.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the trend in health information technology (IT) systems adoption in hospital emergency departments (EDs) and its effect on ED efficiency and resource use. DATA SOURCES: 2007-2010 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey - ED Component. STUDY DESIGN: We assessed changes in the percent of visits to EDs with health IT capability and the estimated effect on waiting time to see a provider, visit length, and resource use. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The percent of ED visits that took place in an ED with at least a basic health IT or an advanced IT system increased from 25.2 and 3.1 percent in 2007 to 69.1 and 30.6 percent in 2010, respectively (p < .05). Controlling for ED fixed effects, waiting times were reduced by 6.0 minutes in advanced IT-equipped EDs (p < .05), and the number of tests ordered increased by 9 percent (p < .01). In models using a 1-year lag, advanced systems also showed an increase in the number of medications and images ordered per visit. CONCLUSIONS: Almost a third of visits now occur in EDs with advanced IT capability. While advanced IT adoption may decrease wait times, resource use during ED visits may also increase depending on how long the system has been in place. We were not able to determine if these changes indicated more appropriate care.

Emergency department visits and proximity to patients' residences, 2009-2010.

The number of emergency department (ED) visits rose 44% from 1991 through 2010, even as the number of hospital EDs declined 10% over the same period. As a result, EDs have increasingly experienced overcrowding and longer waiting times. However, little is known about which ED patients visit, how often patients go to the ED closest to their home, and how differences in geography, patient demographics, and hospital characteristics are associated with ED selection patterns.

A national survey on health department capacity for community engagement in emergency preparedness.

CONTEXT: Limited systematic knowledge exists about how public health practitioners and policy makers can best strengthen community engagement in public health emergency preparedness ("CE-PHEP"), a top priority for US national health security. OBJECTIVES: To investigate local health department (LHD) adoption of federally recommended participatory approaches to PHEP and to identify LHD organizational characteristics associated with more intense CE-PHEP. DESIGN: National survey in 2012 of LHDs using a self-administered Web-based questionnaire regarding LHD practices and resources for CE-PHEP ("The Community Engagement for Public Health Emergency Preparedness Survey"). Differences in survey responses were examined, and a multivariate analysis was used to test whether LHD organizational characteristics were associated with differences in CE-PHEP intensity. SETTING: A randomized sample of 754 LHDs drawn from the 2565 LHDs that had been invited to participate in the 2010 National Profile of LHDs. Sample selection was stratified by the size of population served and geographic location. PARTICIPANTS: Emergency preparedness coordinators reporting on their respective LHDs. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: CE-PHEP intensity as measured with a scoring system that rated specific CE-PHEP practices by LHD according to the relative degrees of public participation and community capacity they represented. RESULTS: Survey response rate was 61%. The most common reported CE-PHEP activity was disseminating personal preparedness materials (90%); the least common was convening public forums on PHEP planning (22%). LHD characteristics most strongly associated with more intense CE-PHEP were having a formal CE-PHEP policy, allocating funds for CE-PHEP, having strong support from community-based organizations, and employing a coordinator with prior CE experience. CONCLUSIONS: Promising ways to engage community partners more fully in the PHEP enterprise are institutionalizing CE-PHEP objectives, employing sufficient and skilled staff, leveraging current community-based organization support, and aligning budgets with the value of CE-PHEP to US national health security.

An estimate of the global health care and lost productivity costs of dengue.

Contemporary cost estimates of dengue fever are difficult to attain in many countries in which the disease is endemic. By applying publicly available health care costs and wage data to recently available country-level estimates of dengue incidence, we estimate the total cost of dengue to be nearly 40 billion dollars in 2011.

Medical reserve corps volunteers in disasters: a survey of their roles, experiences, and challenges.

The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) was established in the Office of the Surgeon General in response to the spontaneous but disorganized outpouring of medical volunteers following the terrorist attacks of 2001. The mission of the federal MRC office is to provide organizational structure and guidance to the nearly 1,000 locally organized and funded MRC units that have grown up across the country and the more than 200,000 volunteer health professionals that staff these units. Despite the large size of this program and its numerous activations over the past decade, including in the Boston Marathon bombing and Hurricane Sandy, relatively little is known about the MRC, including the make-up of the units, the ways units have been used, and the challenges faced by MRC units and their volunteers. Here we report the results of a mixed-methods investigation of MRC unit organization, activities, and challenges.

On the accuracy of classifying hospitals on their performance measures.

The evaluation, comparison, and public report of health care provider performance is essential to improving the quality of health care. Hospitals, as one type of provider, are often classified into quality tiers (e.g., top or suboptimal) based on their performance data for various purposes. However, potential misclassification might lead to detrimental effects for both consumers and payers. Although such risk has been highlighted by applied health services researchers, a systematic investigation of statistical approaches has been lacking. We assess and compare the expected accuracy of several commonly used classification methods: unadjusted hospital-level averages, shrinkage estimators under a random-effects model accommodating between-hospital variation, and two others based on posterior probabilities. Assuming that performance data follow a classic one-way random-effects model with unequal sample size per hospital, we derive accuracy formulae for these classification approaches and gain insight into how the misclassification might be affected by various factors such as reliability of the data, hospital-level sample size distribution, and cutoff values between quality tiers. The case of binary performance data is also explored using Monte Carlo simulation strategies. We apply the methods to real data and discuss the practical implications.

Designing family-centered male circumcision services: a conjoint analysis approach.

BACKGROUND: Male circumcision (MC) has become an important weapon in the fight against HIV/AIDS in many Sub-Saharan African countries. The successful implementation of a national MC program requires the design of circumcision services that are attractive to young men of various ages. For many potential clients, mothers and/or fathers will play an important role in the decision to be circumcised, and hence services will need to be designed with the preferences of mothers, fathers, and sons in mind. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to value multiple design characteristics of potential community-based MC services from the perspectives of mothers, fathers, and sons in Johannesburg, South Africa, and to test for concordance between their values for the design characteristics. METHODS: Potential design characteristics of MC services were identified through open-ended interviews with key informants (n = 25). Preferences were estimated using conjoint analysis implemented as part of a cluster randomized household survey. Each participant was randomized to receive one of two possible blocks of conjoint analysis, each consisting of six forced-choice tasks comparing two possible MC services varying on 11 design characteristics. With only two levels for each attribute, our experimental design utilized a main effects orthogonal array. Data were analyzed using linear probability models, with tests of concordance of values using Wald tests generated from stratified estimates calculated using restricted least square estimation. RESULTS: A racially and geographically diverse sample consisting of 204 fathers, 204 mothers, and 237 sons completed the survey. In aggregate, requiring a follow-up visit was the most valued design factor (p < 0.001), followed by having a lower infection rate (p < 0.001), having less pain (p = 0.001), and a private waiting room (p = 0.001). Based on stratified analysis, sons also valued having the risks and benefits of MC explained (p = 0.01) and mothers valued requiring an HIV test as part of the procedure. Requiring an HIV test was the most significant difference between the respondents (p = 0.03), with sons finding it somewhat repulsive (p = 0.30). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that valuation of aspects of MC clinic design can diverge by decision maker. To better ensure utilization of services, these variations should be taken into account to prior to implementation of a national strategy in South Africa.