Hospital pay-for-performance programs in Maryland produced strong results, including reduced hospital-acquired conditions.

Over the past decade Medicare has put in place several pay-for-performance programs for hospitals, including one that stopped paying hospitals for treating hospital-acquired conditions and the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program that went into effect in October 2012. In this article we describe how the State of Maryland crafted two pay-for-performance programs applicable to all hospitals and payers-a Quality-Based Reimbursement Program similar to Medicare's value-based purchasing program and a separate program that compared hospitals' risk-adjusted relative performance on a broad array of hospital-acquired conditions. In the first program, all clinical process-of-care measures improved from 2007 to 2010, and variations among hospitals decreased substantially.

My eyes, your eyes--the relationship between CMS five-star rating of nursing homes and family rating of experience of care in Maryland.

In 2008, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) launched the Five-Star Quality Rating System to help consumers compare nursing homes. The quality rating system consists of three domains: nursing home inspection results, staffing, and quality measures (QMs) and an overall rating calculated from the three domains. The Five-Star System has both advocates and detractors.

Trends in the distribution of health care financing across developed countries: the role of political economy of states.

Since the 1980s, major health care reforms in many countries have focused on redefining the boundaries of government through increasing emphasis on private sources of finance and delivery of health care. Apart from managerial and financial choices, the reliance on private sources reflects the political character of a country. This article explores whether the public-private mix of health care financing differs according to political traditions in a sample of 18 industrialized countries, analyzing a 30-year period.

Water privatization and public health in Latin America.

Objectives: This study had two objectives: (1) to determine what the public health and development literature has found regarding the public health outcomes of water privatization in Latin America and (2) to evaluate whether the benefits of water privatization, if any, outweigh the equity and justice concerns that privatization raises.

Methods: Using a standard set of terms to search several databases, the authors identified and reviewed articles and other materials from public health and development sources that were published between 1995 and 2005 and that evaluated the public health effects of water privatizations in Latin America from 1989 to 2000, based on (1) access to water by the poor and/or (2) improvements in public health. Next, the authors examined the experiences of three cities in Bolivia (Cochabamba, El Alto, and La Paz) in order to illuminate further the challenges of water privatization.