Quality Reporting by Payers: A Mixed-Methods Study of Provider Perspectives and Practices.

Background: Providers need timely, clinically meaningful, and actionable information to improve quality of care. Payers may play an important role in providing such information in ambulatory care settings. We sought to learn about providers' use and perceptions of quality reports from insurers.

Comparison of interactive voice response, patient mailing, and mailed registry to encourage screening for osteoporosis: a randomized controlled trial.

Unlabelled: Guidelines recommend screening for osteoporosis with bone mineral density (BMD) testing in menopausal women, particularly those with additional risk factors for fracture. Many eligible women remain unscreened. This randomized study demonstrates that a single outreach interactive voice response phone call improves rates of BMD screening among high-risk women age 50-64.

Using administratively collected hospital discharge data for AIDS surveillance.

The objectives of this study were twofold: to improve methods of identifying possible and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related hospital discharges in administrative databases and to measure AIDS-reporting completeness in Massachusetts both overall and by subgroup. We used fiscal year 1988 discharge data from the Massachusetts Rate Setting Commission (RSC) and data from the Massachusetts AIDS Reporting System (ARS). We identified 3362 discharges of adult patients (> 12 years old) from the RSC file that had diagnosis codes which are human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-specific (042.

AIDS among the homeless of Boston: a cohort study.

We wanted to compare demographics, risk behaviors, AIDS-defining diagnoses, and survival between homeless and housed persons with AIDS in Boston from 1983 to 1991. Our retrospective cohort study used chart review to identify homeless AIDS cases and data from the Massachusetts AIDS Surveillance Program for comparison of homeless and nonhomeless cases. Seventy-two homeless and 1,536 nonhomeless Boston residents were reported to have AIDS between Jan.

Survival with AIDS in Massachusetts, 1979 to 1989.

Objectives: The goal of the study was to determine survival time after diagnosis of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and to identify predictors of survival.

Methods: We conducted a population-based prospective survival analysis of all Massachusetts-resident adult AIDS patients diagnosed from January 1, 1979, through December 31, 1988.

Results: Median survival was 406 days, with a 5-year survival rate of 3%.