All Articles on Health

• Good, affordable health care for all: How long will it take?

  The decision to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) should put our country on a straighter path toward improving access, affordability, and quality for all—imperatives in our Institute’s mission.
• What do patients really want? PCORI-funded research raises the bar

  Here at GHRI—and other similar research organizations across the U.S.—scientists are busy preparing proposals for PCORI, a federally funded nonprofit organization that the Affordable Care Act established to focus on comparative effectiveness research.
• Integrated health systems form largest U.S. private-sector diabetes registry

  Group Health and 10 other integrated health systems, with more than 16 million members, have combined de-identified data from their electronic health records to form one of the largest, most comprehensive, and most geographically diverse diabetes registries in the nation. According to a new study published today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Preventing Chronic Disease, the SUPREME-DM DataLink provides a unique and powerful resource to conduct population-based diabetes research and clinical trials.
• Genetic testing may not trigger more use of health services

  People have more and more chances to participate in genetic testing that can indicate their range of risk for developing a disease. Receiving these results does not appreciably drive up—or diminish—test recipients’ demand for potentially costly follow-up health services, according to a new study in the May 17, 2012 early online issue of Genetics in Medicine.
• ‘Choosing Wisely’ initiative may be a tipping point for costs and ethics

  Health professionals and their leaders have a moral duty to ensure their patients’ safety, personally and through system improvement.
• Team care of chronic diseases seems cost-effective

  The collaborative TEAMcare program for people with depression and either diabetes, heart disease, or both appears at least to pay for itself, according to a UW Medicine and Group Health Research Institute report in the May 7 Archives of General Psychiatry. Over two years, after accounting for the $1,224 per patient that the program cost, it may save as much as $594 per patient in outpatient costs.
• Breast cancer screening: A trio of innovators shines light on the evidence women need

  Serious questions remain about how best to balance screening’s benefits with its potential harms, including false-positive test results, overdiagnosis leading to invasive treatment for non-life-threatening conditions, and repeated exposure to radiation.