Invited commentary: A prospective randomized trial on parents' disease knowledge and quality of life. Shall WeChat about telehealth?

WeChat and access to wireless communication may offer a continuum of care following medical and surgical intervention. This cardiac surgery research study evaluates the process of parental education and social support following pediatric cardiac surgery utilizing standard of care compared to telehealth.

Effect of periodic health exam on provider management of preventive services.

Rationale And Objective: To evaluate the relationship between receipt of annual physicals and the receipt of provider recommendation for preventive services, during a period when Medicare did not cover annual physicals (before 2011).

Methods: Electronic medical records of patients aged 65 years and older from a US health care system were extracted for the 2001 to 2007 period. A fixed-effects logistic model was used to assess the relationship between receipt of periodic health examination (PHE) and receipt of provider recommendation for mammogram screening for 6466 female Medicare beneficiaries.

Maximizing Operational Efficiency Using an In-House Ambulatory Surgery Model at an Academic Medical Center.

Given the rising costs of healthcare delivery and reimbursement constraints, large academic medical centers (AMCs) must improve efficiency while delivering high-quality care. With standardized cases and high volumes, ambulatory surgery is a high-value target for efficiency improvement. Mining a data set of more than 7,500 cases consisting of the three highest-volume ambulatory procedures in orthopedics, otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, and urology, we analyzed process times and wait times involved in patient flow.

Community health center efficiency: the role of grant revenues in health center efficiency.

Objective: To test the relationship between external environments, organizational characteristics, and technical efficiency in federally qualified health centers (FQHCs). We tested the relationship between grant revenue and technical efficiency in FQHCs.

Data Sources/study Design: Secondary data were collected in each year from the Uniform Data System (UDS) on 644 eligible U.

How much can we gain from improved efficiency? An examination of performance of national HIV/AIDS programs and its determinants in low- and middle-income countries.

Background: The economic downturn exacerbates the inadequacy of resources for combating the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic and amplifies the need to improve the efficiency of HIV/AIDS programs.

Methods: We used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate efficiency of national HIV/AIDS programs in transforming funding into services and implemented a Tobit model to identify determinants of the efficiency in 68 low- and middle-income countries. We considered the change from the lowest quartile to the average value of a variable a "notable" increase.

A CTSA agenda to advance methods for comparative effectiveness research.

Clinical research needs to be more useful to patients, clinicians, and other decision makers. To meet this need, more research should focus on patient-centered outcomes, compare viable alternatives, and be responsive to individual patients' preferences, needs, pathobiology, settings, and values. These features, which make comparative effectiveness research (CER) fundamentally patient-centered, challenge researchers to adopt or develop methods that improve the timeliness, relevance, and practical application of clinical studies.

Using visual and narrative methods to achieve fair process in clinical care.

The Institute of Medicine has targeted patient-centeredness as an important area of quality improvement. A major dimension of patient-centeredness is respect for patient's values, preferences, and expressed needs. Yet specific approaches to gaining this understanding and translating it to quality care in the clinical setting are lacking.

Analyzing performance in addiction treatment: an application of data envelopment analysis to the state of Maryland system.

The pressure is on to measure performance and to increase accountability in health care in general and in addiction treatment in particular. The pressure in the world of addiction treatment comes in large measure from the limited resources that are available in relation to the very large numbers of potential patients. Using data on 161 clinics in the state of Maryland, this article illustrates how data envelopment analysis (DEA), a methodology used widely in other settings, can be used to measure the performance of addiction treatment clinics and can help to identify appropriate benchmarks for clinics wishing to improve their performance.

Substance abuse treatment organizations as mediators of social policy: slowing the adoption of a congressionally approved medication.

Most substance abuse treatment occurs in outpatient treatment centers, necessitating an understanding of what motivates organizations to adopt new treatment modalities. Tichy's framework of organizations as being comprised of three intertwined internal systems (technical, cultural, and political) was used to explain treatment organizations' slow adoption of buprenorphine, a new medication for opiate dependence. Primary data were collected from substance abuse treatment organizations in four of the ten metropolitan areas with the largest number of heroin users.