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Publications & Reports

Copies are available on the Web, <www.cbpp.org>, or call 202-408-1080.

Pharmaceuticals

Top Medicaid Pharmaceuticals Quality Of Care Social Determinants Of Health Technology Books Received

 
Prescription Drug Expenditures in 2000: The Upward Trend Continues was released by the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) in May 2001. The report finds that overall spending on retail outpatient prescription drugs rose 18.8 percent between 1999 and 2000, from $111.1 billion to $131.9 billion. About half of the increase occurred among eight categories of medicines (including those for treating high cholesterol, arthritis, chronic pain, and depression). The other half occurred among increased sales for twenty-three individual drugs (including Vioxx, Lipitor, Prevacid, and Celebrex). "An increase in the number of prescriptions overall and a shift towards the use of costlier drugs continued in 2000 to be the central forces driving up retail prescription drug spending."

Copies are available on the Web, <www.nihcm.org>, or call 202-296-4426.

Quality Of Care

Top Medicaid Pharmaceuticals Quality Of Care Social Determinants Of Health Technology Books Received

 
Reducing and Preventing Adverse Drug Events to Decrease Hospital Costs, Issue 1 of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Research in Action series, synthesizes AHRQ-funded research to see "what works and doesn’t work" in reducing medication errors. The research shows that computerized monitoring and medication ordering systems are key. In one hospital (Brigham and Women’s) computer monitoring ranked much higher than voluntary reporting did in number of adverse drug events found and was faster in discovery time than chart review. In the same hospital AHRQ found that computerized medication order entry "has the potential to prevent an estimated 84 percent of dose, frequency, and route errors." Such systems can save hospitals "as much as $500,000 a year in direct costs."

Copies are available on the Web, <www.ahrq.gov/qual/aderia/aderia.htm>, or call the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse, 800-358-9295.

Social Determinants Of Health

Top Medicaid Pharmaceuticals Quality Of Care Social Determinants Of Health Technology Books Received

 
Income, Socioeconomic Status, and Health: Exploring the Relationships was released in January 2001 by the National Policy Association. Editors James Auerbach and Barbara Krimgold have assembled some dozen researchers to explore the scientific research in the field, policy options, and areas for further research. The researchers urge that "health policy be linked to social and economic determinants of health." The following six areas are deemed most critical: (1) investing in young children; (2) providing services for the neediest; (3) improving the work environment; (4) strengthening community support; (5) creating amore equal economic environment; and (6) assessing the impact of economic and social actions on health through ongoing research. In the last chapter the editors ask, "Can America continue to ignore opportunities to reduce inequality and improve well-being, workplace competitiveness, and family life? Or will we rewrite the social contract for the 21st century and, by so doing, improve the health of all?"

Copies of the 161-page book are available for $20 each; the thirty-page executive summary, for $10 each, from NPA, Suite 700, 1424 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington, D.C., tel.: 202-884-7623.

Technology

Top Medicaid Pharmaceuticals Quality Of Care Social Determinants Of Health Technology Books Received

 
The Impact of Medical Technology on Future Health Care Costs, from Project HOPE’s Center for Health Affairs (CHA), examines technology’s role in the rise in U.S. health spending, relative to other factors such as inflation and the aging of the population, and its likely influence on future health spending. The study, released in March 2001 and funded by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and the Health Insurance Association of America, combines a review of trends and forecasts of the "residual" (a factor commonly used as an indicator of the use of new medical technologies) with nine detailed case studies of new and emerging technologies. These include coronary stents for restenosis of the arteries; drug inhalation devices for delivery of insulin; electron beam computed tomography to screen for coronary artery calcification; and genetic testing for colorectal cancer. The authors expect the upward health spending trend to continue in the coming five years, at perhaps a slightly higher pace than the average trend for the 1990s. The key question from a societal perspective, however, is not how much technology costs, but whether investments in medical technology are worth the health gains produced. The CHA researchers found that most of the technologies studied may be cost-effective if used in appropriately selected individuals. The report challenges policymakers and the insurance community to put in place the incentives for more appropriate use of technology. It also challenges the research community to assist policymakers in understanding the circumstances in which a new technology adds value.

Free single copies of the report may be obtained by contacting Jackie Davis at Project HOPE, <jdavis{at}projecthope.org> or 301-656-7401, ext. 246.

Books Received

Top Medicaid Pharmaceuticals Quality Of Care Social Determinants Of Health Technology Books Received

 
AIDS Doctors: Voices from the Epidemic, by Ronald Bayer and Gerald M. Oppenheimer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 310 pp., $27.50.

Beyond Complementary Medicine: Legal and Ethical Perspectives on Health Care and Human Evolution, by Michael H. Cohen (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 224 pp., $39.50.

Changing Health Care Systems from Ethical, Economic, and Cross Cultural Perspectives, edited by Erich H. Loewy and Roberta Springer Loewy (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2001), 187 pp., $55.

Changing the U.S. Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management, 2d ed., by Ronald D. Andersen, Thomas H. Rice, and Gerald F. Kominski (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 553 pp., $48.95.

Welfare, Choice, and Solidarity in Transition: Reforming the Health Sector in Eastern Europe, by János Kornai and Karen Eggleston (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 365 pp., $69.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper).

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