HSC at the Core of a Research Network
ver the last several years, RWJF has built a network
of research organizations studying various facets of the changing health care
system at the national and local levels. These research groups are simultaneously
examining the Community Tracking Study communities and will be collaborating
on future studies.
At RAND, Beth McGlynn and Steve Asch are leading a team that is analyzing data about the quality of care for people in the 12 HSC site visit communities. To measure clinical quality, researchers are examining medical records and, in select sites, conducting health exams. RAND's second round of data collection is scheduled to begin this summer and will be augmented with a national supplement. Researchers eventually will be able to assess how clinical quality of care is affected by insurance coverage and various market factors over time.
At UCLA/RAND, researchers led by Kenneth Wells, Audrey Burman and Roland Sturm are examining how public policies and markets are affecting access to substance abuse and mental health services. Two rounds of data have been collected using a sample of individuals from the Household Survey. Also at RAND, Stephen Long and Susan Marquis are continuing to analyze issues around employment-based health insurance, including examining data from the 60 CTS sites.
The newest collaborative project, which was launched this year and is led by Stephen Shortell at the University of California at Berkeley, will study physician organizations across the country, including those located in selected HSC study sites. This project focuses on how physician group practices and independent practice associations are governed and financed, and how they manage care.
This network of research groups will yield far more than each of its individual parts, as researchers draw on each other's data and expertise to understand what drives change at the community level, how these forces interact and affect various aspects of the system and what the changes mean for the nation's health care system and individual consumers.
