All Articles on Cost

• Looking for ROI: Can big data deliver on its promise to boost value?

  Health execs want more actionable data to improve quality and reduce cost. Dr. Eric Larson reflects on a survey GHRI recently led for the IOM.
• 7 big cost-cutting ideas from the Birnbaum panel

  With the nation’s health care cost crisis worsening, we invited three leading experts on the topic to address Group Health’s annual Birnbaum Endowed Lecture. Challenging our community to deliver on its promise of affordable care for all, the panel offered plenty of ideas—along with some comic relief.
• Documentary Escape Fire inspires innovative action at a critical time

  Group Health’s care and coverage work together to achieve healthier outcomes for patients; and how we have become a national leader by staying true to our founders' mission.
• Innovation grant leads to improvements for diagnosing shoulder problems

  The Partnership for Innovation is a Group Health Foundation donor-funded program that allows Group Health providers and staff to test innovations with the potential to improve care, lower costs, and boost patient satisfaction.
• Avoiding “voltage drop” when treatments move from research to practice

  According to Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), “There is a well-described ‘voltage drop,’ or decrease in efficacy, when we move treatments from the research setting to real world practice.”
• The patient's role in surgery choices: More engagement, better care

  By providing care in a way that is more patient centered, Group Health is also demonstrating one way the nation might address an epidemic of overtreatment and medical harm—and its related suffering.
• Introducing decision aids may lower surgery for arthritis

  After Group Health Cooperative introduced video-based “decision aids” for people with knee and hip arthritis, rates of knee and hip replacement surgeries dropped sharply: by 38 and 26 percent, respectively, over six months. The cost of caring for those patients also declined: by 12 percent to 21 percent, according to an article in the September Health Affairs.