Health policy roundtable: producing and adapting research syntheses for use by health-system managers and public policymakers.

Growing demand for evidence-based information to inform health care policy and management decisions has inspired new methods for synthesizing relevant information and strategies. This roundtable provides a rationale for the science of synthesizing useful knowledge, including leading-edge initiatives from the United States and Canada.

Health policy roundtable: how are Medicaid and SCHIP weathering the storm?

States recently went through a period of rising Medicaid costs and declining revenue, creating pressure to cut the program, while economic hardships, population expansion, and changes in the private sector created counter pressures to swell its ranks. This roundtable, organized and moderated by Alan Weil, presents a variety of perspectives on recent events, including a national overview of how Medicaid and SCHIP fared relative to other state priorities, one state's experience with significant cuts and the research questions that arose from them, and another state's use of research and evidence to prevent having to make drastic reductions to its programs.