Penn State University Libraries - Health Policy

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  The lead federal agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans.

• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
  Formerly known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the Center is responsible for administering the Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments), and several other health-related programs.

  • Regulations and Guidance

• Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)

• Health Services Research and Public Information Programs [National Library of Medicine]

• Congressional (Proquest) [Penn State Libraries]
  Track congressional activities and legislation. Find reports from the important committees dealing with health care issues.

• CQ.com
  Bill tracking and federal budget activity. Most detailed federal budget information available.

• Federal Register
  Search and browse the full text of the Federal Register. Daily release of new final and proposed federal regulations.

• Code of Federal Regulations
  Annual cumulation of current (in force) federal regulations. Title 42 (Public Health) covers Health Care Financing Administration Regulations.

• LexisNexis State Capital [Penn State Libraries]
  Explore activities in the states. Track Legislation and regulations at the state level.

• Regional and State health & human services resources

• List of links to State Health and Human Service Agencies maintained at healthfinder.gov

Pennsylvania

• Pennsylvania Department of Health

  • Department of Health Topics A-Z

  • Health Statistics and Research

  • Facilities, Providers, and Managed Care Plans

• PA Department of Public Welfare

  • Office of Medical Assistance Programs

• Pennsylvania Code [State regulations]

Find out more about the "players"

Selected Major Interest Groups

• American Medical Association [AMA]

• American Association of Retired Persons [AARP]

• American's Health Insurance Plans

• Family Voices

• Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association

• American Hospital Association

• National Business Group on Health

• American Nurses Association

• Service Employees International Union

Other Organizations

• Commonwealth Fund

• Kaiser Family Foundation

• Center for Health System Change

• Milbank Memorial Fund

Find More

• DIRLINE
  directory of organizations interested in health care issues — with links to their web sites.

• Associations Unlimited [Penn State Libraries]
  basic information about a wide range of organizations.

• Yearbook of International Organizations [Penn State Libraries]

Follow the Money

• Open Secrets — track money from interest groups in the political process.

Scholarly journal and newspaper articles can give you a more in-depth view of your issue.

• LionSearch
  Think of this as Google for the Penn State Libraries' resources. Use keywords to cross-search a wide selection of library databases and the Penn State Libraries' online catalog in one search. While LionSearch DOES NOT cross-search all Libraries' databases and leaves out some crucial subject databases, it is a good place to start and find some good scholarly resources.

• PubMed [Penn State Libraries]
  The National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database. It includes the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the pre-clinical sciences.

• Health Services Research (HSR) Queries
  A subset of PubMed, this database focuses specifically on health care quality and costs.

• CINAHL [Penn State Libraries]
  Index to nursing literature

• Sociological Abstracts [Penn State Libraries]
  Search broad social problems including lack of access to health care and the underlying causes.

• Social Services Abstracts [Penn State Libraries]
  Includes articles related to the health services.

• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts [Penn State Libraries]
  Use to find articles on the politics of health policy.

• Annual Reviews [Penn State Libraries]
  Includes the Annual Review of Public Health

• ABI/Inform [Penn State Libraries]
  A subset of ProQuest, this database focuses on business journals and newspapers, including the business of health care.

• Modern Healthcare
  Modern Healthcare is the industry's leading source of healthcare business news. The online edition requires free registration to access the articles.

U.S. Statistics

• American Factfinder
  Census Department resource for population, housing, economic and geographic data.

• U. S. Bureau of the Census
  More general demographics from the census bureau

• Health Insurance
  Data collected by the U.S. census related to health insurance and health access. The Census Bureau also produces valuable data related to the population of an area, including demographic and economic statistics that are valuable to health care administrators.

• National Center for Health Statistics
  The nation's principal health statistics agency, it compiles statistical information to improve health and guide actions and policies.

• Data Sources available from AHRQ [Agency for Healthcare Research Quality]
  Links to various data sources provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, including accessibility of care, healthcare disparities, healthcare quality, healthcare spending, healthcare use, hospitalizations, and data by state and payer type.

• Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (MEDICARE/MEDICAID)
  Data available regarding all issues related to Medicare/Medicaid, including data by provider type, for special interest populations, and trend reports.

• AHA Data [American Hospital Association]
  Data, statistics, trend reports, and projections available from the American Hospital Association (AHA) on all issues related to hospitals.

• Health Information Research and Public Health Information Programs [U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health]
  Data sources related to access, quality, and cost provided by the Health Services Research Division of the National Library of Medicine.

• The Commonwealth Fund
  "A Private Foundation Working Toward a High Performance Health System." The foundation maintains an interactive United States map allows comparison of state-specific rankings and benchmark data between states on a range of issues, including performance indicators and financial sustainability. Performance Snapshots offers a compendium of charts and narratives that plot the progress of the United States healthcare system towards high efficiency and performance. The Child Health System Performance offers state specific details on a range of children’s health indicators and allows for regional comparison and analysis.

• Kaiser Family Foundation
  The Kaiser Family Foundation provides data related to healthcare reform, minority health and health disparities, Medicaid/CHIP/Medicare, Costs and Insurance, and the Uninsured. The Kaiser Foundation includes brief fact sheets related to specific issues and larger data sets including charts and narratives with the most recent data.

• County Health Rankings
  County Health Rankings allows comparison of health outcome and health factor rankings by county and state for all counties in the United States.

• Medical Group Management Association [MGMA]
  The results of MGMA surveys have been the industry standard in benchmarking and organization assessment tools for over 50 years. MGMA allows the search of all surveys and summaries for relevant data and benchmarking figures related to management of healthcare organizations.

• National Quality Forum (NQF)
  The National Quality Forum produces a set of endorsed performance measures that are used to measure and quantify healthcare processes, outcomes, patient perceptions, and organizational structures/systems associated with the provision of high quality healthcare. Performance measures endorsed by the NQF are used by hospitals, healthcare systems, and government agencies (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid) for public reporting of performance and quality improvement research. The NQF provides the surveys used by organizations as benchmarking and assessment tools.

• National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)
  The NCQA research department is responsible for expanding and enhancing the use of health plan-quality data. The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) produced by the National Committee for Quality Assurance is a tool used by more than 90% of America's health plans to measure performance on dimensions of care and service. HEDIS consists of 71 measures across 8 domains of care. Because so many plans collect HEDIS data, and because the measures are so specifically defined, HEDIS makes it possible to compare the performance of health plans on an "apples-to-apples" basis. Health plans also use HEDIS results themselves to see where they need to focus their improvement efforts.

• The Joint Commission
  The Joint Commission’s annual report on improving quality and safety among accredited hospitals includes data on a variety of measures from over 3,000 Joint Commission accredited hospitals.

Pennsylvania Statistics

• Pennsylvania Department of Health, Health Statistics and Research
  Data from the PA Department of Health including health statistics for Pennsylvania residents (vital statistics, chronic disease, behavioral risk, communicable disease, health facilities, and minority health) community health assessment data, and links to other state and federal agencies reporting similar data.

• The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council
  The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council is an independent state agency responsible for addressing the problem of escalating health costs, ensuring the quality of health care and increasing access for all citizens regardless of ability to pay. The Hospital Performance Report 2008 is available, including data related to 49 treatments and surgical procedures provided by Pennsylvania's general acute care hospitals, patient outcome results (including length of stay and readmission), and hospital charges. Other data sources available include: Hospital Financial Analysis and Measuring the Quality of Commercial HMOs.

International Data Sources

• UNData [United Nations] — on of the best starting places for a wide range of social and economic data this site pulls data from the whole range of agencies in the United Nations family and beyond.

• WHO (World Health Organization) data and statistics — the World Health Organization is the primary authority within the UN for directing global health initiatives. For more in-depth country information look at the Regional Office information (listed at the bottom of the page).

• OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

  • Statistics from A to Z — download Excel tables; some real-time datasets

  • OECD Library — a subscription service available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account that has a robust statistical component (with data not available on the free site) as well as in-depth policy studies.

• Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Center

General Statistical Resources

• Statistical Insight [ProQuest] [Penn State Libraries]
  Index to statistics and data contained in federal agency, state government, and private organization publications.

• Statistical Datasets [ProQuest] [Penn State Libraries]
  A companion database to Statistical Insight, Datasets allows you to construct your own data comparisons, create charts and graphs, export data, and more. Contains a wealth of data on health indicators.

• Vital Statistics on American Politics [Penn State Libraries]
  More than 200 tables on U.S. elections and political parties, public opinion and voting, the media, the three branches of U.S government, foreign, military, social and economic policy. Contains some time series data. Data can be exported for use in Excel or other statistical software.