July 21, 2010 - Julio Frenk, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and T & G Angelopoulos professor of Public Health and International Development, a joint position at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard School of Public Health, has been elected to The Commonwealth Fund Board of Directors. His membership on the Board will begin in April 2011.
June 23, 2010 - Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall compared to six other industrialized countries—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—on measures of health system performance in five areas: quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability to lead long, healthy, productive lives, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. While there is room for improvement in every country, the U.S. stands out for not getting good value for its health care dollars, ranking last despite spending $7,290 per capita on health care in 2007 compared to the $3,837 spent per capita in the Netherlands, which ranked first overall.
June 8, 2010 - The new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI) must be inclusive and flexible in developing and implementing payment initiatives, continuously monitor their impact, and rapidly disseminate them if they appear to be successful, in order to realize the potential for improved health care delivery and reduced spending, according to a new Health Affairs article by Commonwealth Fund researchers.
May 27, 2010 - Community health centers that are closely affiliated with hospitals have fewer difficulties getting their patients appointments for specialty procedures like x-rays, diagnostic tests, and visits with specialist physicians, according to a new Commonwealth Fund survey of community health centers released today.
May 21, 2010 - Most of the 13.7 million currently uninsured young adults in the U.S. could gain health insurance coverage under the recently enacted health reform law, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund.
May 21, 2010 - The Center for American Progress and The Commonwealth Fund released a report today that details the effects of the health reform law passed in March.
May 19, 2010 - The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) has announced a new fellowship program to help reporters identify and describe high performance health care in their local health care systems and across the United States.
April 5, 2010 - After more than a year of debate and countless meetings, votes, and speeches, Congress passed sweeping health reform legislation last month, and President Barack Obama signed it into law. By an overwhelming majority (89%), leaders in health care and health policy think the new reform law will successfully expand access to affordable health insurance to the millions of Americans who currently go without it.
March 11, 2010 - All primary care doctors in Denmark use electronic medical records and 98 percent have the ability to electronically manage patient care—including ordering prescriptions, drafting notes about patient visits, and sending appointment reminders. In addition, almost all medical communication between primary care doctors, specialists, and hospitals is electronic, according to a new Commonwealth Fund profile of the Danish health care system.
February 4, 2010 - Today researchers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that U.S. health spending reached $2.5 trillion in 2009, and that health care's share of the economy grew 1.1 percentage points to 17. 3 percent—the largest one-year increase since the federal government began keeping track in 1960. These findings underscore the need for comprehensive health care reform that will help rein in the unsustainable spending growth that is placing an increasing burden on American families, businesses, and state and local governments
January 15, 2010 - A new Commonwealth Fund survey of safety-net clinic patients in New Orleans finds that, despite being disproportionately low-income and uninsured, these patients had fewer problems affording care and fewer instances of medical debt and inefficient care than most U.S. adults.
January 8, 2010 - As key details of the health system overhaul are negotiated in Congress, The Commonwealth Fund is pleased to offer a new report comparing the health insurance provisions of the separate bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as new updates of two earlier Fund reports examining the proposals and their potential impact.
December 29, 2009 - A gap exists between policy makers' expectations that current commercial electronic medical records can improve coordination of patient care and clinicians' real-world experiences with EMRs, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) published online in The Journal of General Internal Medicine.
December 18, 2009 - An overwhelming majority—88 percent—of young adults across the political spectrum think it is important for Congress and the President to pass health reform legislation that would assure affordable health insurance for all and improve health care, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey released today.
November 5, 2009 - A new Commonwealth Fund survey of primary care physicians in 11 countries reveals that the United States lags far behind its peers in key measures of access, quality, and use of health IT—undermining doctors' efforts to provide timely, high-quality care.