These studies provide a window on what's going on in the health care system, and that's very important. Dr. Meltzer's study will look at the effect of hospitalists, or hospital-based internists, on both the quality and cost of health care. We're finding both significant cost savings and better outcomes as hospitalists gain more disease-specific experience. Michal Tamuz, a researcher from the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, received a grant to study ways to improve medication safety. Researchers will examine how two tertiary care hospitals and their pharmacies collect information about potential adverse drug events and errors, and how they seek to learn from those actual and potential errors.
Quality improvement is a never-ending journey.
The research grants we are announcing today will lead to improved health outcomes for Americans. We're especially gratified that many of this year's grants are focused on improving the quality of care for patients with diseases such as AIDS, asthma and diabetes, which are more prevalent among historically underserved populations. The Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum was established by Aetna U. S. Healthcare in 1996 to forge a closer working relationship between academic medicine and managed care. It is a unique partnership of many of the nation's top medical institutions working with managed care, major employers, federal agencies, private foundations, pharmaceutical and information technology companies to address some of the most significant issues facing medicine today. The Fund supports innovative, applied health services research by Forum participants, designed to directly improve practices impacting the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of health care and health outcomes for patients.