April 2, 2009 - One of five Medicare beneficiaries discharged from the hospital is readmitted within 30 days, and half of non-surgical patients are readmitted to the hospital without having seen an outpatient doctor in follow-up, according to a Commonwealth Fund-supported study in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
January 19, 2009 - Leaders in health care and health care policy feel strongly that President-elect Barack Obama should pursue an ambitious health care reform agenda that expands coverage while also improving quality and efficiency, and controlling costs.
December 17, 2008 - The Commonwealth Fund has launched a new Web site that allows health care providers to conduct side-by-side comparisons of 4,500 hospitals nationwide, track performance over time against numerous benchmarks, and download tools to improve health care quality.
October 29, 2008 - A new Commonwealth Fund-supported study by Boston researchers shows that while patients are generally satisfied with their care, satisfaction levels are not as high as they could be and rise significantly when hospitals have more nurses at the bedside.
August 7, 2008 - Americans are dissatisfied with the U.S. health care system and 82 percent think it should be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt, according to a new survey released today by The Commonwealth Fund.
November 19, 2007 - Health care providers, insurance companies and drug makers should make information about prices available to the public, according to a new survey of leaders in health care and health policy.
September 11, 2007 - September 11, 2007—In metropolitan areas across the United States, blacks are more likely than whites to live in poor quality nursing homes, according to a new study in the September/October issue of Health Affairs.
July 30, 2007 - As health care quality and patient safety concerns rise, the latest Commonwealth Fund Health Care Opinion Leaders survey finds leaders united behind several key reform measures: more than half (56%) support the creation of a new public-private entity to coordinate quality efforts and form a national quality agenda; 95% believe that fundamental payment reform is needed; and three-fourths (73%) say that greater organization and integration of provider care is necessary for improved quality and efficiency.
January 12, 2006 - A major Massachusetts research study has demonstrated the feasibility and value of measuring the quality of care provided by individual physicians and their office practices by asking their patients. With information obtained From a relatively small number of patients of individual physicians, the researchers found highly reliable and stable information about both the quality of doctor-patient interactions and about the functioning of the doctor's office.
October 11, 2005 - The first study to assess the effects of a pay-for-performance program in a large health plan found significant quality improvement in a physician group with a quality incentive program (QIP) for one of the three clinical measures studied, compared with a physician group without a QIP.
September 14, 2005 - Two Commonwealth Fund–supported studies in the September/October issue of Health Affairs examine the potential benefits and challenges for solo and small-group physician practices in adopting electronic health records (EHRs), and highlight the greater difficulties smaller practices face in implementing health information technology (HIT), compared with larger health care institutions.
August 1, 2005 - Achieving a desirable, workable national health information network (NHIN) will cost $156 billion over five years in capital investment and $48 billion in annual operating costs, according to a new Commonwealth Fund–supported study published in the August 2nd issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
May 13, 2005 - Rewarding more efficient and high-quality providers ranked first among effective ways to cut health care costs, according to the latest Commonwealth Fund Health Care Opinion Leaders survey.
May 10, 2005 - A majority of physicians are not actively engaged in quality improvement practices, and are reluctant to share information about the quality of the care they provide with the general public, according to findings from a national survey published today in Health Affairs by Commonwealth Fund researchers.
March 2, 2005 - A new study assessing the utility of online physician directories shows that despite the increased use of the Internet, consumers resist using these resources for a variety of reasons, preferring instead to rely on personal recommendations when looking for a doctor.