As the implications of the 2008–09 financial crisis for the world economy and markets have become clearer, many foundation executives and investment committees are reassessing their approach to endowment management.

All primary care doctors in Denmark use electronic medical records and 98 percent have the ability to electronically manage patient care—including ordering prescriptions, drafting notes about patient visits, and sending appointment reminders. In addition, almost all medical communication between primary care doctors, specialists, and hospitals is electroni […]

Denmark is one of the world's leading countries in the use of health care technology. Virtually all Danish primary care physicians have electronic medical records with full clinical functionality.

This consensus report lays the groundwork for a measurement framework that evaluates efficiency, and ultimately value, across patient-focused episodes of care. This framework will help key stakeholders move toward a high-performing healthcare system that is patient-centered, focused on quality, mindful of costs, and vigilant against waste.

Massachusetts has successfully demonstrated the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project, a program that provides timely telephonic psychiatric and clinical guidance to primary care providers treating children with mental health problems. This study looks into the development and implementation of the project.

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

President Obama told seniors that the health care legislation being considered in Congress would make preventive care cost-free and close a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage.

Though some elements of Democrats' procedural strategy have yet to be decided, the majority's basic plan is clear: The House will approve the bill that was passed by the Senate in December and will vote on a package of amendments (known as the reconciliation bill) that would then need to be passed by the Senate.

Imagine you're a moderate Democrat in the House, and you're wavering on health care. Boy, are you in for some heat.

We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law.

As states cut Medicaid, doctors find payments insufficient. Poor areas like Flint, Mich., face particular hardship.

Since arriving at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden has scrapped most of the Bush-era changes.The former New York City health commissioner has rapidly reversed many of the Bush administration’s policies at one of the world’s top health agencies.

After 50 years, a tiny drug maker on Long Island has found a potentially lucrative use for its only medicine.

At a seniors’ center in Ohio, President Obama talked about a cleaning woman who had dropped her costly insurance plan, only to discover she had leukemia.

Advertising that rivals the ferocity of a presidential campaign is taking aim at about 40 House Democrats.

When Claudette Broyles tries to describe to friends how she feels, she likens herself to a balloon on a string, tied to a post.

The best athlete I knew in college has just had both his hips replaced. Another friend recently got two new titanium knees. We're all in our 50s -- once among the fittest in our college classes and now suffering from the kind of worn-out, creaking joints that generally come at a much older age.

What did you crave when you were pregnant: Chocolate? Tacos? Sardines? Or were you more driven by food aversions than by cravings?

One year after President Obama announced he was lifting his predecessor's controversial restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, some scientists are complaining that so far the new policy is -- ironically -- more of a burden than a boon to their work.

In the hope of expanding a controversial form of organ donation into emergency rooms around the United States, a federally funded project has begun trying to obtain kidneys, livers and possibly other body parts from car-accident victims, heart-attack fatalities and other urgent-care patients.

By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff Massachusetts Senate leaders indicated today that they will push forward significant measures this year to control soaring health care costs in the state, which likely will include caps on payments to hospitals and doctors. Legislators made...

A Boston program created to cut down on patients' return trips to the hospital has been licensed to a California health care software company for further development. Reducing hospital readmissions is a focus of the Obama adminsitration's efforts to...

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff Doctors and nurses in Boston's high temples of modern medicine have the latest of everything at their disposal: hulking machines that take glowing snapshots of patients' organs, devices that help lungs breathe and hearts beat,...

Newly released documents from a major insurer detail how certain hospitals and doctors are paid dramatically more than others for the same types of services, sometimes as much as three times higher.The chief executive of Blue Cross and Blue Shield...

By Karen Weintraub, Globe Correspondent A low-cost drug known since the time of the Pharaohs improved diabetes symptoms in a Boston study being published tomorrow, and its success supports an entirely new way of understanding the disease. The drug, called...

You could be forgiven for thinking that there is no illegal activity taking place in the following scenario: You go to your physician with, say, chest pain; she diagnoses angina and writes you a prescription for nitroglycerin tablets; you go...

An experimental device that uses a catheter-based probe to freeze a tiny area of the heart that causes erratic electrical impulses is much better than drugs at curing atrial fibrillation, researchers reported Monday at the Atlanta meeting of the American...

Knee replacement and hip resurfacing don't have to mean the end of that go-go-go lifestyle, as Jeannine Stein reported earlier Tuesday on Booster Shots. But promises of an active existence aside, not knowing what to expect from the surgery can...

Since 1987, Health Affairs has published news and insights into health care and health policy philanthropy in its ongoing journal section called GrantWatch. Now GrantWatch has moved to the blogosphere. The GrantWatch Blog will feature news and updates about health grant making, particularly as it relates to current health policy issues. Blog content will inc […]

Editor’s Note: In addition to Dr. Leighton Ku (photo and bio above), the authors of this post include Dr. Peter Shin, an Associate Research Professor and Director of the Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and Brian Bruen, a Lead Research Scientist and Lect […]

At long last, health reform legislation appears headed for a series of final votes in the next few weeks. The ultimate outcome in treacherous political waters is uncertain. What should happen, from the perspective of a consumer advocacy organization, is abundantly clear: Congress should pass legislation this year to begin dramatically improving health care a […]

Editor’s Note: The March issue of Health Affairs is a thematic issue focusing on the child obesity epidemic and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Two days after the issue and an accompanying series of policy briefs was released at a March 2 Washington DC briefing, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held the fi […]

Editor’s Note: The March issue of Health Affairs is a thematic issue focusing on the child obesity epidemic and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Two days after the issue and an accompanying series of policy briefs was released at a March 2 Washington DC briefing, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held the fi […]