Integrative Medicine: An Opportunity for Improving Quality of Care in the Inpatient Setting.

As medicine shifts to a value-based focus, health care providers in inpatient settings are actively seeking approaches to providing high-quality patient care without exacerbating prevailing cost burden. Complementary and integrative medicine may offer one potential solution for this challenge. Although the benefits of utilizing integrative practices in the inpatient setting have not been explored extensively thus far, early evidence demonstrates great promise of using integrative modalities to improve symptom burden in the inpatient setting while increasing patient pain satisfaction and reducing overall costs of care. Currently, social, educational, and financial barriers exist, limiting the widespread incorporation of complementary and integrative medicine into the inpatient setting. Nonetheless, a more robust body of literature demonstrating the effectiveness of complementary and integrative medicine in reducing costs of care and improving patient outcomes may help address these limitations and lead to the acceptance of integrative practices as the standard of high-value inpatient care.

A Quasi-Experimental Study of Medicaid Expansion and Urban Mortality in the American Northeast.

Objectives: To investigate the association of state-level Medicaid expansion and non-elderly mortality rates from 1999 to 2018 in Northeastern urban settings. Methods: This quasi-experimental study utilized a synthetic control method to assess the association of Medicaid expansion on non-elderly urban mortality rates [1999-2018]. Counties encompassing the largest cities in the Northeastern Megalopolis (Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston) were selected as treatment units (n = 5 cities, 3,543,302 individuals in 2018). Cities in states without Medicaid expansion were utilized as control units (n = 17 cities, 12,713,768 individuals in 2018). Results: Across all cities, there was a significant reduction in the neoplasm (Population-Adjusted Average Treatment Effect = -1.37 [95% CI -2.73, -0.42]) and all-cause (Population-Adjusted Average Treatment Effect = -2.57 [95%CI -8.46, -0.58]) mortality rate. Washington D.C. encountered the largest reductions in mortality (Average Treatment Effect on All-Cause Medical Mortality = -5.40 monthly deaths per 100,000 individuals [95% CI -12.50, -3.34], -18.84% [95% CI -43.64%, -11.67%] reduction, p = < 0.001; Average Treatment Effect on Neoplasm Mortality = -1.95 monthly deaths per 100,000 individuals [95% CI -3.04, -0.98], -21.88% [95% CI -34.10%, -10.99%] reduction, p = 0.002). Reductions in all-cause medical mortality and neoplasm mortality rates were similarly observed in other cities. Conclusion: Significant reductions in urban mortality rates were associated with Medicaid expansion. Our study suggests that Medicaid expansion saved lives in the observed urban settings.