Author

AHRQ Funding Opportunity: Making Healthcare Safer, Data-Driven, and Accessible

June 1, 2018

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has re-issued a funding opportunity for Large Research (R01) Project applications that focus on AHRQ’s mission or one of three priority areas. AHRQ is a federal agency that aims to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable and affordable. AHRQ focuses on research and works...Read more

Why Physician Offices Shouldn’t be Bingo Parlors

Mary Jo Condon, MPPA

May 4, 2018

Leading an APCD

A thought-provoking blog by Sachin H. Jain in Forbes online this week suggests that the maxim “All healthcare is local” will soon be replaced by “All healthcare is social.” It sounds good, right? Research clearly shows loneliness negatively impacts health. So, why not find ways to support people, especially seniors, in improving their health by...Read more

Continuing Medical Education Program Helps Physicians Communicate with Patients about Care Appropriateness and Variation in Cost

Mary Jo Condon, MPPA

March 16, 2018

Leading an APCD

The Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC), the independent regulatory agency nationally-recognized for its work to advance cost transparency, had a solution to address high spending on MRIs for low back pain. Trouble was, it was a solution for the wrong problem. MHCC proposed generating cost comparison data on MRIs facility fees, but physicians quickly pointed...Read more

Defining Health Care Value: Why Do We Have to Agree?

Mary Jo Condon, MPPA

March 14, 2018

Analytics and Reporting

The Harvard Business Review recently published an article titled, “We Won’t Get Value-Based Health Care Until We Agree on What ‘Value’ Means.” The title begs a simple question, “Why do we have to agree?” Why can’t patients and the employers and health plans that foot much of their health care bills make individual and situational...Read more

CIVHC Shows the Power of Data and Partnerships

Mary Jo Condon, MPPA

March 8, 2018

Leading an APCD

In acting, it’s an Oscar. In baseball, it’s a home run. In the world of all-payer claims databases, the ability to successfully disseminate data across a broad pool of motivated, talented partners emerges as a particularly important and visible measure of success. Wide dissemination of large custom data sets requires a series of complex gears...Read more

Health Care Needs More than Bezos, Buffet and Dimond

Mary Jo Condon, MPPA

February 14, 2018

Data Quality

Customers tame markets. But in health care, the customers with the greatest ability and responsibility to shape the industry– the employers who buy health care for most Americans – have lacked the courage to demand value. They’ve chosen to accept outrageous costs rather than face the public relations’ unpleasantries of rejecting high-priced providers. They’ve shied...Read more