RESUMEN
Data from 443,812 admissions to publicly funded detoxification centers in Massachusetts (fiscal year 1984 to fiscal year 1996) were analyzed to assess changes in the population served. Substantial increases in admissions of women, African Americans, and Hispanics were apparent. Mean age at admission declined and unemployment increased. A 25% decline in admissions reporting alcohol use was coupled with a twofold increase in reported cocaine use and a fourfold increase in heroin use. Detoxification services have evolved. The older, white, male alcoholic is no longer the primary consumer. Policy initiatives (e.g., increased services for women) and the changing epidemiology of drugs abuse (e.g., increased access to heroin) contributed to the changing population served in detoxification centers.
Asunto(s)
Alcoholismo/economía , Readmisión del Paciente/economía , Centros de Tratamiento de Abuso de Sustancias/economía , Trastornos Relacionados con Sustancias/economía , Adulto , Anciano , Alcoholismo/rehabilitación , Control de Costos , Estudios Transversales , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Massachusetts , Persona de Mediana Edad , Readmisión del Paciente/estadística & datos numéricos , Centros de Tratamiento de Abuso de Sustancias/estadística & datos numéricos , Trastornos Relacionados con Sustancias/epidemiologíaRESUMEN
The pros and cons of treating health care as a profit-making business got a lively airing in Boston May 16, when the Harvard School of Public Health's "Second Conference on Strategic Alliances in the Evolving Health Care Market" presented what was billed as a "Socratic panel." The moderator was Charles R. Nesson, J.D., a Harvard Law School professor of 30 years' standing whose knack for guiding lively discussions is well known to viewers of such Public Broadcasting Service series as "The Constitution: That Delicate Balance. "As one panelist mentioned, Boston was an interesting place for this conversation. With a large and eminent medical establishment consisting mostly of traditionally not-for-profit institutions, the metropolis of the only state carried in 1972 by liberal Presidential candidate George McGovern is in one sense a skeptical holdout against the wave of aggressive investment capitalism that has been sweeping the health care industry since the 1994 failure of the Clinton health plan. In another sense, though, managed care-heavy Boston is an innovative crucible of change, just like its dominant HMO, the not-for-profit but merger-minded Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Both of these facets of Beantown's health care psychology could be discerned in the comments heard during the panel discussion. With the permission of the Harvard School of Public Health--and asking due indulgence for the limitations of tape-recording technology in a room often buzzing with amateur comment--MANAGED CARE is pleased to present selections from the discussion in the hope that they will shed light on the business of health care.