Healthcare System Change M.S. Healthcare Administration Exploration

¶ … Healthcare System Change

M.S. Healthcare Administration Exploration National quality performance improvement initiatives. The organizations noted focused specific areas research, study practices information dissemination national organizations public, private governmental sectors.

Center for Studying Health Care System Change:

Exploration of national quality and performance improvement initiatives

Charter

The Center for Studying Health Care System Change (HSC) is a non-profit, non-partisan group that is specifically committed to expanding the knowledge of healthcare to better enable policy-makers to make informed decisions. "HSC does not take policy positions and is a resource for decision makers on all sides of the issues because of its reliable data and objective analysis" (Mission statement, 2012, Center for Studying Health Care System Change). Although it has a variety of funders "HSC only accepts funding when it retains the right to publish all research results. Final research topic selection, methodological and editorial decisions ultimately reside with HSC" (Principles for research funding, 2012, Center for Studying Health Care System Change).

Past impact

The Center has been influential in understanding the impact of the recession upon healthcare spending. For example, in a recent study it found that "ore than one in five Americans were in families reporting problems paying medical bills in 2010 -- about the same proportion as in 2007," a figure which seems somewhat surprising, given that it might be assumed that the sour economy would result in considerably more problems, regarding payment for healthcare (Sommers & Cunningham 2011). However the likely reason is that Americans are consuming less care and fewer Americans without jobs have private insurance while more are dependent upon public funding for basic care. There is still a severe problem regarding payment of medical bills and the ability to obtain care. Two-thirds of all Americans reported that they had problems paying for basic necessities and more than a quarter considered bankruptcies to deal with medical bills (Sommers & Cunningham 2011). The growing trend to expect a higher percentage of employees to pay for their own coverage was also confirmed in another study conducted by the Center, which involved a survey of 12 nationally-representative metropolitan communities. "Employers responded to the economic downturn by continuing to shift health care costs to employees, with the trend more pronounced in small, mid-sized and low-wage firms" (Christianson, Tu, & Samuel 2011).

A number of members of the Center have been called to testify before legislative bodies to provide information about the state of healthcare today. The president of the organization testified before the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, on health care cost trends and summarized several of the organization's reports and findings. Ginsburg stressed the overall success of the Massachusetts healthcare program in its efforts to provide universal insurance and promising efforts in Maryland to keep costs down through a requirement for consistent pricing of services. Ginsburg argued for the need to require that citizens buy insurance to increase the risk pool and greater government intervention in regulating costs and designing benefits (Ginsburg 2011).