Plug into Reform
New research provides insights into how the innovative “Pay for Success” (PFS) financing model could be used in interventions aimed at Medicaid populations. The analysis, one of the first investigations into the potential of PFS for Medicaid recipients, suggests that the approach could help fund the implementation of evidence-based childhood asthma interventions that help avoid emergency department visits—if legal and regulatory barriers can be overcome.
New research that seeks to understand how hospital policies dictate what nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) are allowed to do reveals that there is enormous variations across hospitals, and that, contrary to what might be expected, this variation is not associated with state scope of practice laws for either profession.
In February 2016, the American Journal of Public Health published an article about contraceptive needs and costs in the United States after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act coauthored by George Washington University’s Leighton Ku and Erika Steinmetz.
A new blog in Health Affairs analyzes recent data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) on the pipeline of new nurse practitioners (NPs) and registered nurses (RNs). It presents the implications for the health care system, nursing and physician education, and federal and state policies.
Recent media reports suggest that healthcare providers around the country are grappling with how to respond to rising rates of endocarditis, a life-threatening infection caused by bacteria that enter the bloodstream and settle in the heart, linked to people who inject drugs. Reports in the New York Times and NPR describe the dilemma faced by physicians called on to perform repeat costly heart surgeries on patients who were re-infected with endocarditis as a result of ongoing illicit drug use.