Biomedical subjects

R Rontal

Publications and source records attributed to R Rontal.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

A major employer as a health care services laboratory.

Health care management within the USA operations of the Ford Motor Company is a substantial and critical enterprise. The company provides health care coverage for a population of 636,000 active employees, retirees and their dependents at a cost of US$1.5 billion annually. The company realizes that effective management of health care resources requires continuous improvement in the services for which the company contracts and in the manner in which these services are provided to employees. In this context, the company's health care management department views the Ford employee population as a living health care sciences laboratory for the design, evaluation and improvement of health care services. The population, available data sources, and their advantages and disadvantages for use in the evaluation of disease and health utilization patterns are discussed in this paper from an epidemiological perspective. Two examples of preliminary evaluations are presented to illustrate use of data from this large employee population for improving care provided to persons with elevated risk of cardiovascular disease.

Health Benefit Plans, Employee↗

PubMed1993

Information and decision support in managed care.

Employers are increasingly purchasing health care benefits based on value, as it relates to both current and future needs, and they are seeking managed care partners who are committed to continuous quality improvement. They realize that meaningful health care information provides an essential foundation to support the development and implementation of future strategies, rather than allowing change to occur by chance. The success of a managed care strategy depends on the employer's ability to monitor plan performance routinely and target opportunities for improvement; the managed care organization's commitment to maintain cost-effective, quality-conscious provider networks; and the providers' willingness to change their practice patterns to improve quality and outcomes.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗

PubMed1991

Applications for risk-adjusted outcome measures.

This paper reports on the development and application of multiple risk-adjusted measures of hospital performance (mortality, readmission, complications). The indices are based on patient-level data so they can be aggregated at any level (hospital, specialty, physician), are easy to use and interpret by hospitals, and provide an inexpensive method for evaluating hospital performance using existing databases. This paper focuses on the development of practical applications of these measures in the quality improvement process.

Hospital Mortality↗