HRET board member Catherine McLaughlin, PhD, senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. and professor at the University of Michigan, is the conference chair of this year's AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting. Dr. McLaughlin is a nationally recognized expert on health insurance and health care market competition. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance and a member of the Council on Health Care Economics and Policy. The AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting takes place June 28-30 in Chicago and is the premier annual conference in the field of health services research. The meeting draws several thousand health services researchers, providers, and policymakers and features peer-reviewed research sessions, policy roundtables, poster presentations, and networking opportunities. Click here to learn more.

On Friday, July 24, at the Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit at the San Francisco Marriott, HRET president Maulik S. Joshi, DrPH, will moderate the panel "Making Innovation Happen-What Have We Learned That Drives Successful Performance Improvement Here and Abroad?" Panelists will include Robert M. Wachter, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, Glenn D. Steele Jr., MD, PhD, of Geisinger Health System, Sam Nussbaum, MD, of WellPoint, Inc., and Sally Welborn of Wells Fargo & Company. Click here to read more about this year's Leadership Summit.

Pilot data suggest that routine HIV testing of hospitalized patients is a promising approach to early identification of HIV-infected patients. On June 16, HRET, together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center, School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, hosted an exploratory working group meeting, "Consultation on Implementation of Routine HIV Screening at Hospital Admission." The meeting brought together hospital administrators, laboratory scientists, health policy professionals, hospitalists, nurses, internal medicine and infectious disease physicians, risk managers, admissions managers, and payer groups. The meeting identified barriers and facilitators to initiating routine HIV screening at hospital admission. Click here to read more about HRET's work in exploring approaches to HIV testing and treatment.

The AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting is the premier annual conference in the field of health services research. Several HRET staff will present posters at this year's meeting. Megan McHugh, PhD, HRET director of research, will present the poster "Medicare's Payment Policy for Hospital-Acquired Conditions: What Is the Impact on Safety-Net Hospitals?" Kevin Van Dyke, MPP, HRET researcher, will present "Evaluating Perceptions of Quality: A Comparison of CEO and Board Chair Responses." Juliet Yonek, MPH, HRET senior researcher, will present "Working to Improve Language Services in California Public Hospitals: An Assessment of Organizational Readiness to Engage." Dr. McHugh will also give an oral presentation, "Inpatient Quality of Care at Safety-Net Hospitals," which will describe how findings on performance by safety-net and non-safety-net hospitals vary based on how safety-net hospitals are defined. Click here for more information about this year's meeting.

Join HRET for the seventh annual Trust Award reception, this year honoring former U.S. surgeon general David Satcher, MD, PhD. Dr. Satcher is director of the Center of Excellence on Health Disparities and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute and the Poussaint-Satcher-Cosby Chair in Mental Health at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. As surgeon general, Satcher addressed issues that had not previously garnered national attention, including mental health, sexual health, obesity, as well as racial and ethnic disparities in access and quality of care. Several of his groundbreaking reports were both controversial and highly respected. Established in 2003, the TRUST Award recognizes individuals who have exhibited visionary leadership in the health care field and who symbolize HRET's commitment and desire to build continued trust within health care organizations and with community partners. This year's event will take place on Thursday, July 23, in conjunction with the Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit. For more information, contact Jennifer Shaw at jshaw@aha.org.

The Institute will host its 2009 Multicultural Breakfast on Friday, July 24, 7:00-8:15 a.m., at the Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit at the San Francisco Marriott. The title of this year's breakfast is "The Role of Leadership in Providing Safe, Quality Health Care to Diverse Populations." The session will convene national health care leaders to address issues around cultural competence. Amy Wilson-Stronks, MPP, project director and principal investigator of the Joint Commission's Hospitals, Language, and Culture (HLC) study will summarize key findings, and Yolanda Robles, president of CulturaLink, will share first-hand experience addressing the complex issues of language and culture in hospitals and health systems around the country. Click here for more information.

HRET and the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations will be hosting a free workshop, "Getting to Zero: How Hospitals Can Use Rapid Tests to Virtually Eliminate Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission," at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel in Pierre, SD, on Thursday, September 10. Open to hospital staff from labor and delivery, nursery, emergency, laboratory, infectious disease, and pharmacy, the workshop will discuss implementing perinatal rapid-screening HIV tests.

Each year approximately 144 to 236 infants in the United States acquire HIV infection through perinatal transmission, and about 40 percent of these infants' mothers were not tested until birth or later. In our continuing effort to eliminate perinatal HIV transmission, HRET is holding free workshops around the country. Continuing education credits are available.

To register for the Pierre workshop or for more information, contact Barbara Mooney at bmooney@aha.org or (312) 422-2694.

The June issue of HSR features articles on quality and performance, utilization and cost, and assessments of Medicare and Medicaid. The issue features three free articles and commentaries:

• "A Systematic Review of Health Care Efficiency Measures," by Peter S. Hussey, Han de Vries, John Romley, Margaret C. Wang, Susan S. Chen, Paul G. Shekelle, and Elizabeth A. McGlynn
• "Commentary: A Systematic Review of Health Care Efficiency Measures," by Leah F. Binder and Barbara Rudolph
• "Commentary: Slack Resources in Health Care Organizations-Fat to Be Trimmed or Muscle to Be Exercised?" by Jacqueline Zinn and Ann Barry Flood

Click here to access the June issue, currently available online.

The May/June 2009 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Public Health Reports features an article co-authored by Julie Yonek, MPH, HRET senior researcher. In "HIV Testing and Referral to Care in U.S. Hospitals Prior to 2006: Results from a National Survey," Ms. Yonek and co-authors describe findings of a 2004 survey of HIV testing practices. The survey was conducted prior to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) 2006 revised recommendations for hospitals to routinely provide HIV screening to all patients aged 13 to 64. The study found that HIV testing was available in more than half of all hospital inpatient units, employee health departments, and emergency departments. The survey also revealed that hospital teaching status, region, size, and type of metropolitan area were correlated with the availability of testing. Hospitals used a variety of methods to link patients to care. Click here to learn more.

Congratulations to William E. Encinosa, PhD, and Fred J. Hellinger, PhD, both of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Their article "The Impact of Medical Errors on Ninety-Day Costs and Outcomes: An Examination of Surgical Patients" was selected as the 2009 John M. Eisenberg Article of the Year in Health Services Research. Established in 2003, this award recognizes overall quality of an article and its relevance to policy areas that Dr. Eisenberg studied or promoted during his tenure as director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Click here to access the article for free.

Health care systems must go through fundamental changes in form and function to more effectively achieve their missions. The primary focus of the CEO and governing board should not solely be on organizational and practitioner needs, but rather on the well-being of their patients and communities. Healthcare Transformation: A Guide for the Hospital Board Member, by Maulik Joshi, president of HRET and senior vice president for research at AHA, and Bernard J. Horak, professor and director of health systems administration programs at Georgetown Unversity, helps leaders make the transformative changes necessary to elevate their organization's quality and safety performance and deliver better health care. Click here to learn more.