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Research Activities

April 1996

Feature Story

Departments

Women's Health Issues
   Radiologists sometimes vary widely in their interpretation of the same mammograms
   Choice of treatment for early-stage breast cancer often depends on hospital characteristics
   Treatment intensity varies by age in elderly women with breast cancer even after controlling for other medical problems

Medical Effectiveness/Outcomes Research
   Recent findings from the Cardiac Arrhythmia PORT
   Recurrent cardiac ischemia after TT remains a frequent, serious, and costly problem
   Low Birthweight PORT examines use of prenatal testing and corticosteroids in prevention of preterm birth
   Surgery found effective in reducing seizures and medications needed to control intractable epilepsy
   High mortality found for patients with community-acquired pneumonia

Primary Care/Managed Care
Having a regular site of care but not a regular personal physician does not adversely affect access to care
Research needed on the impact of selective contracting and freedom-of-choice laws on managed care plans

Health Care Costs and Financing
   Many community hospitals keep operating despite economic woes
   Some financially distressed rural community hospitals discontinue acute care
   Employment-related health insurance effectively pools medical risk among employees

Quality of Care/Hospital Systems
   Researchers examine implications of early use of DNR orders for critically ill ICU patients
   Nearly one-quarter of ICU patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease die in the hospital
   Changes in reimbursement policies more than changes in technology have altered the mix of inpatient procedures
   Over 8 percent of hospitalized Medicare patients arrive from nursing homes

Health Care for the Elderly
   Serious complications rare in elderly patients undergoing hip arthroplasty
   Unregulated use of psychotropic drugs poses danger to elderly residents of board and care facilities
   Alcohol problems in older patients often escape detection

HIV/AIDS Research
Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole continues to be the best choice for preventing PCP in AIDS patients

Clinical Practice Guidelines
New guideline challenges clinicians to help smokers quit

AHCPR News and Notes
   AHCPR reorganizes to streamline operations
   AHCPR receives $125.3 million in FY 1996 funding
   Administrator testifies in support of AHCPR's FY 97 budget
   AHCPR, Duke University, and DuPont Merck agree on joint project to continue stroke prevention research

Announcements
   AHCPR announces new funding opportunities
   AHCPR and Kaiser to cosponsor conference on communicating with consumers about health care quality
   AHCPR releases second installment of the hospital inpatient database and the first three HCUP-3 Pocket Guides
   New publications available from NTIS

Research Briefs
   An expert system for performance-based direct delivery of published clinical evidence
   Reproducibility and responsiveness of the VF-14
   Characteristics of reluctant respondents in the National Medical Expenditure Survey
   Severity measurement methods and judging hospital death rates for pneumonia
   Can comorbidity be measured by questionnaire rather than medical record review?
   Workers' compensation recipients with carpal tunnel syndrome
   The promise of computerized feedback systems for diabetes care
   Adverse selection among multiple competing health maintenance organizations
   Functional disability scales
   Health values of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus
   Empirical Bayes combination of estimated areas under ROC curves using estimating equations

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AHCPR Publication No. 96-0055
Current as of April 1996

Internet Citation:

Research Activities newsletter. No. 192, April 1996. AHCPR Publication No. 96-0055. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/apr96/