Context: Funded partially by the Older Americans Act, state Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs (LTCOPs) provide a critical role in serving as… More

Starting in 2015, states could apply for section 1115 substance use disorder (SUD) waivers to strengthen their continuum of care for treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). Prior research found substantial variation in changes to medication use for OUD associated with waiver implementation. The objective of this study was to identify strategies that states undertook as part of their waivers that were associated with increases in methadone and buprenorphine treatment in eight waiver states (Indiana, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia). More

Lean management is a sociotechnical approach to quality improvement that aims for consistency in work processes and outcomes. This can be leveraged to reduce inequities by ensuring delivery of high-quality care to meet the needs of patients with diverse backgrounds. Despite recent efforts in the field, there is limited study on how managers implement health equity and workforce diversity goals as strategies to improve patient care. Given the important role of leadership in fostering workplace culture, we examined leader activities and specifically their use of lean management practices to support equity initiatives in health care. More

Current primary care productivity measures do not account for investment in interprofessional primary care teams in relation to primary care goals and thus are insufficient for assessing and improving primary care efficiency and productivity. We explored alternative productivity measurement methods. More

A growing body of scholarship and practice in public health attests to the importance of addressing differences in power as a fundamental determinant of health inequities. To pursue health equity, public health practitioners must move beyond identifying differences in health outcomes among populations (disparities) to articulating why those differences are unfair or unjust (inequities) and then identifying structures, such as laws, policies, practices, and norms, that advantage some and disadvantage others. More

Individuals with behavioral health disorders are more likely to experience substantial harm from a police encounter, prompting reforms to minimize encounters between police and people experiencing a behavioral health crisis. One strategy involves expanding partnerships between certified community behavioral health clinic (CCBHC) mobile crisis teams and emergency response systems, often through two models: 911 referral, wherein a CCBHC’s behavioral health practitioner–only team responds to 911 calls, and co-response, wherein a CCBHC clinician joins a police or emergency medical services (EMS) team. More