Reminder:
Call for Papers
NBER Conference on Hospital Organization and Productivity
October 4-5, 2013
The NBER is organizing a conference on how
organizational structure, management practices,
and related innovations affect the costs and
cost-effectiveness of health care, focusing on
the hospital industry and health systems that
have hospitals at their core. The hospital
sector represents the single largest sector
within the healthcare industry; accounts for 31
percent of national health expenditures; and is
the locus of many managerial and technological
innovations. It is also marked by substantial
heterogeneity in organizational formsmost
notably the presence of both for-profit and
not-for-profit entitiesand substantial variation
in management practices and the relationship
between measured inputs and outputs. The sector
is consolidating and increasingly under financial
pressure, as cost-containment efforts seek to
drive out unnecessary hospital utilization and
Medicare and Medicaid payments fall.
The NBER will host a two-day conference that will
bring together economists, physicians, and
policymakers to discuss the available evidence on
how organizational form, practices, and
procedures affect health outcomes and costs, and
to better understand cost-saving potential within
the hospital sector. The organizers are Amitabh
Chandra, David Cutler, Robert Huckman and Elizabeth Martinez.
The conference will emphasize empirical research
on specific organizational structures,
interventions, and practices. In keeping with
the NBER's prohibition on making policy
recommendations, papers may describe the
consequences of policies, and their potential
costs or benefits, but they may not offer policy
recommendations or make normative statements about particular policies.
Examples of questions about organizational
structures, practices and trends that might be
addressed in conference papers include, but are not limited to:
* How are innovations in health care delivery
affecting hospital utilization, and what are the
implications for total costs of care?
* How are changes in payments, either in the
form of payment reforms like bundled payments or
value-based reimbursement, affecting the delivery of hospital care?
* How are trends in hospital consolidation or
regulation affecting hospital pricing?
* How do operational changes such as lean
production techniques and standardized care
protocols affect healthcare costs, the patient experience, and outcomes?
* What is the evidence that providing
information on hospital performance and prices
has impacted providers and patients?
* How does the structure of physician
compensation, or the hiring of particular
physicians with a particular practice style, affect the value of care?
* What is the evidence, if any, that for-profit
and not-for-profit health care organizations
respond differently to incentives to improve the value of care?
Preference will be given to research papers that
are grounded in the study of a specific
organizational feature or practice that has the
potential to reduce costs and improve hospital
productivity. Studies using data from a single
organization are welcome, although authors should
provide some discussion of the extent to which
their findings are likely to apply to a broader
set of organizations and in other contexts.
All papers will have discussants, many of whom
will come from clinical or practitioner
backgrounds, and will be invited for submission
to a special issue of Health Affairs. If the
authors choose to submit their papers to this
journal, their manuscripts will be subject to the
standard review process at Health
Affairs. Presenting a paper at the conference
does not guarantee publication in the special
issue, for which the four conference organizers will serve as guest editors.
The conference, which will include approximately
eight papers, will be held on Cape Cod,
Massachusetts. The NBER will cover the
economy-class airfare and associated travel
expenses as well as lodging costs for up to two
presenters per paper. It will also provide an
honorarium of $3000 per paper, and with the
understanding that presenters stay for the entire conference.
Completed papers or detailed outlines and
abstracts for potential presentation at the
conference may be uploaded at
http://papers.nber.org/confsubmit/backend/cfp?id=HOPf13.
If a submitted manuscript is under review at, or
scheduled for publication in, another journal,
that should be clearly noted. Such papers may be
appropriate for the conference but inappropriate for the special issue.
Papers, outlines, or abstracts must be submitted
by February 28, 2013; authors will be notified
about whether their paper has been included on
the program by March 15, 2013. Questions should
be directed to confer_at_nber.org.
Received on Wed Feb 20 2013 - 08:40:43 EST
