Organizational Health Literacy and Health Among New York State Medicaid Members.

Background: The definition of health literacy has recently expanded beyond the idea of individual skills to include the system and environment the individual interacts with to receive care, known as organizational health literacy (OHL). However, neither the prevalence of OHL nor the impact of OHL on individuals' perceptions of their health and healthcare have been examined in New York's Medicaid managed care population.

Objective: This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of organizational health literacy in the New York State (NYS) Medicaid Managed Care (MMC) program.

Identifying Children with Special Health Care Needs Using Medicaid Data in New York State Medicaid Managed Care.

Objective: The ability to identify children with special health care needs (CSHCN) is crucial to evaluate disparities in the quality of health care for children in Medicaid Managed Care. We developed and assessed the accuracy of a new method to classify CSHCN.

Data Sources: Secondary data analysis was conducted using NYS Medicaid administrative data and the Children with Chronic Conditions Screener (CCC Screener).

Preventive care for chronically ill children in medicaid managed care.

Objectives: To determine whether there is an association between the quality of child preventive care received and the existence of 1 or more chronic conditions.

Study Design: A retrospective study of all New York State children and adolescents enrolled in Medicaid managed care in 2008.

Methods: Using a cohort identified through mandatory annual quality reporting, a clinical algorithm was applied to administrative data to assign children to 3 health status levels: healthy/ acute, minor chronic, and significant chronic.

The quality performance matrix: New York State's model for targeting quality improvement in managed care plans.

This article describes a methodology developed by the New York State Department of Health to analyze health plan performance data using two benchmarks: comparison to peers and comparison to historic results. It explains how that analysis is used to target quality improvement. Through this process the department effectively partners with health plans to foster improvement by identifying problems and barriers, encouraging health plans to set performance goals, and then working with health plans to design action plans to address the barriers.