Key Issues - Health Care

Resources

The Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance website provides free, detailed reports of hospital performance based on widely-recognized and established quality measures designed to be accessible to everyone.  Users can find data on up to 39 different health care quality and experience measures, as reported by general acute care hospitals throughout Pennsylvania, and determine how hospitals compare with another and against state and national averages.  The Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance is a voluntary group of health care organizations with the goal of developing a state-wide approach to hospital quality measurement supported by quality-of-care data from a variety of public sources. 

The Senate Republican HealthNETPA webpage provides detailed information about the Senate Republican legislative package to expand health care access, including bill summaries, number of individuals that will be benefit and funding.

Health Care Legislation 2007-08 (2008 Policy Office Issue Brief)

Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Fund -Mcare (2008 Policy Office Issue Brief)

The Tobacco Settlement (2008 Policy Office Issue Brief)

The Mcare Home Page maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance provides information about the program including an Mcare fact sheet and link to its latest annual report.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council website provides public data about the cost and quality of health care in Pennsylvania. The Council collects over 4.5 million inpatient hospital discharge and ambulatory/outpatient procedure records each year from hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers in Pennsylvania. The Council also collects data from managed care plans on a voluntary basis. The Council shares this data with the public through free public reports.

The Patient Safety Authority website provides information about this independent state agency created by the General Assembly to reduce and eliminate medical errors and to recommend solutions that promote patient safety in health care facilities.

The Office of Health Care Reform website provides information on the Governor’s health care reform proposals.

The U. S. Census Bureau’s Health Insurance webpage provides the latest health insurance date, including comparisons across the states and various demographic sectors of the population.

The Kaiser Family Foundation webpage provides extensive information on health care and other health-related issues, including state health facts.

The Commonwealth Fund webpage provides information about health-related issues at both the federal and state levels. The Commonwealth Fund is a national, private foundation located in New York, NY that supports independent research on health care issues across several subject areas.