According to this year's Employer Health Benefits Survey, released on September 15, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums for family coverage increased an average 5 percent this year to $13,375. Since 1999, premiums have gone up a total of 131 percent, far more rapidly than workers' wages (up 38 percent since 1999) or inflation (up 28 percent since 1999). This year's survey revealed that 60 percent of firms offer health benefits to their workers. However, fewer than half (46 percent) of the smallest employers (three to nine workers) offer health benefits. Among all firms offering benefits, 21 percent report they reduced the scope of health benefits or increased cost sharing due to the economic downturn, and 15 percent report they increased the worker's share of the premium. HRET president Maulik S. Joshi, DrPH, said the survey results "demonstrate the need for comprehensive, meaningful reform. Our nation faces a unique opportunity to achieve reform and build a better health care system that improves care for patients and provides coverage for all at an affordable cost." Click here to read more about this year's survey and to download the report and summary of findings. Click here to access the Health Affairs web exclusive, co-authored by Megan McHugh, PhD, and Awo Osei-Anto, MPP, highlighting this year's findings.

Mary Fennell, PhD, senior associate editor of Health Services Research journal and professor of sociology and community health at Brown University, has been awarded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 2009 Director's Award. The award recognizes Dr. Fennell's work developing and implementing the National Cancer Institute's Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP). The NIH Director's Award is given annually in recognition of superior performance or special efforts that are significantly beyond regular duties but directly related to fulfilling the NIH mission.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest NIH institute, started the NCCCP program in 2007 as a three-year pilot to extend the geographic reach of NCI's cancer research. The NCCCP has 16 community hospital cancer centers in 14 states, with a focus on reaching minority and underserved patients. The NCCCP sites serve 27,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients each year, and there are plans to expand the program. "NCCCP is a public-private partnership of unusual scope," said Dr. Fennell. "It combines resources from both the NCI and from each pilot site community hospital. The goals of the NCCCP range from decreasing disparities in access to clinical trials, to assessing the ability of community cancer centers to engage in tissue sampling, tissue analysis, adoption of electronic medical record systems, and linking to the cancer Bio-informatics Grid."

Health Services Research (HSR) journal welcomes Andy Bindman, MD, and Bryan Dowd, PhD as senior associate editors to the journal. Dr. Bindman is currently chief, Division of General Internal Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital, and professor of medicine, health policy, epidemiology & biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Dowd is the director of graduate studies in health services research, policy, and administration at the University of Minnesota. Senior associate editors are critical in the review and editorial process and contribute to the continued excellence of the journal with a strong dedication to rigorous research and review for publication. To read more about the journal and access abstracts online, visit http://www.hsr.org/.

On Monday, November 16 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern, join HRET for a panel discussion of top innovators from hospitals around the country as well as national experts to discuss actions of the past ten years and ideas for charting a course for future improvement. HRET president Maulik Joshi, DrPH, will moderate. Panelists will include:

• Frank Sardone, President & CEO, Bronson Healthcare Group
• Carol Wagner, RN, MBA, Vice President, Patient Safety, Washington State Hospital Association
• Gene Burke, M.D., Vice President and Executive Medical Director of Clinical Effectiveness, Sentara Healthcare
• Rich Umbdenstock, President & CEO, The American Hospital Association
• Carolyn Clancy, Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Click here to register for this live, interactive webcast.

In a continuing effort to help eliminate perinatal HIV transmission, HRET is offering a free workshop, "Getting to Zero: How Hospitals Can Use Rapid Tests to Virtually Eliminate Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission." This workshop for hospital staff from the state of Ohio will take place on Friday, November 20, at the Holiday Inn Columbus-Worthington in Worthington, Ohio. Continuing education credits are available. To register, and for more information, contact Barbara Mooney at bmooney@aha.org or (312) 422-2694.

This month HRET releases the second in an ongoing series of case studies on successes and lessons learned by innovative hospitals and health systems. This month's brief in the Informing Practice Study Series tells the story of work done at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, to sustain improvements in teamwork and communication. To measure the impact of team training and support ongoing monitoring over time, MMC trained 30 in-house staff and volunteers to collect observational data. By investing in robust data collection, MMC has built its capacity to sustain improvement. Learn more about Maine Medical Center's story at http://www.hret.org/.

No standard method is available for identifying safety-net hospitals, and this can pose challenges to monitoring the quality of care at these types of institutions. Megan McHugh, PhD, HRET director of research, and co-authors address this dilemma in an article in the October issue of Medical Care Research and Review. In "Understanding the Safety Net: Inpatient Quality of Care Varies Based on How One Defines Safety-Net Hospitals," the authors look at three common definitions of safety-net facilities: uncompensated care ratio, Medicaid caseload, and facility characteristics. The article describes their analysis of 2008 Hospital Quality Alliance scores among safety-net and non-safety-net hospitals based on all three definitions. The study revealed that for two definitions, safety-net hospitals provided lower quality of care than non-safety-net providers. Under the third definition, however, results were mixed. Methods for identifying safety-net providers can affect health services research outcomes and policy recommendations. The article was published online on April 27 and appears in the October issue of MCRR. Click here to access the article abstract.

Health Services Research (HSR) journal has released a special topic issue, "Current Research in Public Health Systems and Services Research." Supported by the University of Kentucky, the special issue includes articles on jurisdiction size and public health spending, variation in ED wait times for children by race/ethnicity, and impacts of operating surgeon cumulative experience on postoperative outcomes. Public health services and systems research builds on the discipline of health services research and focuses on the public health system. Definitions of public health services and systems research are relatively new to the field, and AcademyHealth-for which HSR is an official journal-has played a major role in efforts to define the scope, methods, and impact of this evolving field of inquiry. Click here to access the special issue online.

Each month the AHA's Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence (HPOE) Web site adds new case studies that highlight successful and innovative improvement efforts at hospitals. Improvement stories range from Parkview Medical Center (Pueblo, CO) implementing handheld devices to improve patient safety in medication administration to the "Cool It" program at Queen of Peace Hospital (New Prague, Minnesota) preventing brain injury and death for patients in cardiac arrest. In addition, HPOE case studies from the "Chairman's File" are featured biweekly in AHA News Now.