Budgets, like tax codes, are not just fiscal documents with numbers. A budget reflects who has power, whose voice is heard, what needs are met. After the traumatic year we’ve been through, it’s good to see that we have money to spend to begin healing our State. When it comes to health care spending, it…Read More…

We released our Emerging from COVID-19 Action Plan for a Healthier State in early May. Since then, many of you have reached out to discuss next steps. The Action Plan forms the strategic focus of our work at the Quality Institute, and we will continue sharing our efforts to further these far-reaching consensus recommendations. In…Read More…

The settings where people undergo surgeries and other medical procedures have experienced a profound shift. Now it’s time for safety and quality reporting to catch up.   More than 60 percent of surgeries in the United States today are performed in hospital outpatient centers or Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs). The movement of these medical procedures…Read More…

One incredible lesson from the pandemic is how quickly a mode of care, such as telehealth, can be adopted and widely used by so many people in innovative ways. That said, as we heard from each of the speakers at our virtual All-Council Conference yesterday, sustaining and delivering high quality equitable telehealth will take more…Read More…

  Free, compulsory education became the law of the land in the early 19th century, and today few would question its value. Access for all children to public schools is now an ingrained, essential common good and public right supported by government and taxpayers at all levels.   Today, a group of researchers, physicians, and…Read More…

Telehealth has emerged as an essential strategy to provide patients with many types of care, including remote monitoring for home-based care and remote participation in clinical trials. The exponential rise in telehealth is challenging to even calculate. According to the Fair Health Tracker, billing for telehealth services for a year during the pandemic increased more…Read More…

Just over 100 years ago, an especially virulent influenza ignited a cataclysmic pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people around the world. The pandemic of 1918 also ushered in new ways of understanding and delivering health care. Advances that followed the pandemic included a national disease reporting system, employer-based health insurance,…Read More…

  Gov. Murphy’s budget, now before the state legislature, includes initiatives to create a more resilient, equitable and healthier state. The Quality Institute supports the goals of the governor’s budget. We have unprecedented opportunities now, especially with an expected $9 billion coming to state and local governments through the federal American Rescue Plan. We must…Read More…

Last Saturday, I Zoomed into my first New Jersey Local Boards of Health Association (NJLBHA) meeting. The group focused on the critical topic of school re-openings during the COVID-19 pandemic. One member, a researcher and public health physician, presented the latest studies on school re-openings. Then we heard two opposite examples of how public health…Read More…

Today I am sharing a report recently posted on the website of the Department of Banking and Insurance (DOBI). The report provides data to help us determine whether New Jersey’s Out-of-Network Consumer Protection, Transparency, Cost Containment, and Accountability Act is successfully protecting consumers and reducing overall health care costs. It also provides some insight into…Read More…