St@teside

On December 1, 2010, AcademyHealth’s State Health Research and Policy Interest Group opened its Call for Abstracts for its Interest Group meeting, held in conjunction with AcademyHealth’s Annual Research Meeting in June 2011. The Call for Abstractsoffers researchers, policymakers, and practitioners the opportunity to share recent state-level research that emphasizes the unique challenges of working within a state policy and political environment. Papers are being sought that demonstrate novel approaches to addressing state policy research needs, innovative applied data analysis and policy research methods, effective strategies for collaborating with state agencies and policy decision makers, and promising communication tools.

• Issues related to implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), including revenue challenges faced by states, workforce issues, governance issues, etc.
• The potential state-level impact of federal reforms that went into effect in 2010
• Health insurance exchange design and implementation issues
• Insurance market reforms including new purchasing mechanisms, risk pooling, benefit and/or coverage mandates, and employer requirements
• Reforms impacting Medicaid and CHIP
• Alternative benefit designs in public programs or private insurance markets which improve quality, contain costs or incentivize changes in behavior by consumers, providers and health plans

• Policy strategies and delivery system reforms which encourage improved quality and efficiency at the state level with both the private sector as well as public programs (e.g., Medicaid/CHIP)
• The potential impact of enacted federal reforms on health care delivery systems
• Strategies to improve health care efficiency and effectiveness including the encouragement of primary care (including preventive services), chronic care management, and care coordination (e.g., medical homes)
• Innovations to reduce medical errors and reduce inefficiencies in the health care delivery system
• Studies of state health care reform efforts, including studies of innovative reform elements, the effects of large-scale reforms, best practices to engage communities in reform efforts, and the political process of reform
•  Innovative use of information technologies to impact health care access, cost, quality of care and/or utilization