The following are helpful links and articles regarding healthcare:
Access to Medicines: Patient Assistance programs:
HelpingPatients.org is a Web site by PhRMA and its member companies, which is designed to help consumers find patient assistance programs for which they might qualify. Patient assistance programs are designed to help patients in need receive assistance in acquiring their prescribed medications. This online service is free and completely confidential. http://www.helpingpatients.org/Intro.php
Reforming Healthcare: "Redefining Competition in Health Care" Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg Harvard Business Review, June 2004, pp 64-76" The U.S. health care system is in bad shape. Medical services are restricted or rationed, many patients receive poor care, and high rates of preventable medical error persist. There are wide and inexplicable differences in costs and quality among providers and across geographic areas. In well-functioning, competitive markets, such outcomes would be inconceivable. In health care, these results are intolerable. Competition in health care needs to change, say the authors. It currently operates at the wrong level. Payers, health plans, providers, physicians, and others in the system wrangle over the wrong things, in the wrong locations, and at the wrong times. System participants divide value instead of creating it. (And in some instances, they destroy it.) They shift costs onto one another, restrict access to care, stifle innovation, and hoard information--all without truly benefiting patients. This form of zero-sum competition must be replaced by competition at the level of preventing, diagnosing, and treating individual conditions and diseases.Full article is available at:
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtm
Some useful articles:
"Used with permission from the National Pharmaceutical Council"
State Medicaid Resource Kit: Maintaining Quality and Patient Access to Innovative Pharmaceuticals in Challenging Economic Times, 2003 This resource kit, modeled on NCSL's "Managing Medicaid Costs: A Legislator's Toolkit" http://204.131.235.67/programs/health/forum/cost/containment.htm, is designed to help states better identify the needs of their populations and to develop patient-focused cost management interventions while maintaining quality care. Sixteen specific strategies are addressed, providing the pro's and con's, states' experiences, design and policy issues, and Federal and State involvement/constraints http://www.npcnow.org/resources/PDFs/MedicaidKit.pdf
(note an updated version will be available in October)
Value of Investment in Health Care:
Better Care, Better Lives (2004) This study looks at the value of investment in health care for overall health care expenditures as well as for expenditures for the management of four key health conditions -- heart attack, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and breast cancer. Evidence from a variety of sources shows that the value of the health gains during this time period are higher than the increased health care expenditures during this time period, indicating that these additional investments in health care add value to the U.S. population. Full Report: http://www.npcnow.org/resources/PDFs/Medtap/Full_Report.pdf
Value of Incremental Pharmaceutical Innovation to Older Americans:
This July 2001 monograph, updated in December 2001, explains that small incremental improvements within drug classes provide important health benefits, especially for elderly patients. The monograph illustrates that therapeutic advantages of these newer drugs in a class including: fewer side effects, improved safety and greater effectiveness; easier use, which facilitates compliance with prescribed regimens; and better tailoring to fit individual patient needs. http://www.npcnow.org/resources/PDFs/valueincremental_pharm_olderamericans.pdf
Patients First:
Closing the Health Care Gap in Canada by Dr. Terrence Montague The book explores the principles and the evolution of the Patient Health Management model and provide case study examples, population-based evidence and first person testimonials by practitioners, patients and policy makers as to the advantages of large scale adoption of the Patient Health Management model.
http://www.wiley.ca/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470835117.html