Cesarean sections now account for 32% of births in California, raising the risk of complications and infections, and leading to higher costs for patients and society, according to recent research.

Hospitals often view language interpreter services as too costly. A study in Health Affairs shows eight California facilities saved money by using the Health Care Interpreter Network.

Despite the high volume of hip and knee replacement surgeries, data on device efficacy, optimal surgical technique, and patient outcomes are lacking. A statewide, voluntary registry aims to fill these gaps.

This issue brief examines technologies that are helping hospitals to expand capacity by improving their efficiency in moving patients through the stages of treatment. The analysis includes a series of short case summaries that provide examples of such systems in action.

On hospital quality, what do consumers want? This report reviews their perceptions of clinical effectiveness, patient safety, and efficiency and whether consumers have a role in driving improvement.

The state's system for securing on-call emergency department specialist coverage remains costly, complex, and on the edge, due to a shortage of specialists, payment concerns, and liability questions.

Despite their challenging payer mix, a number of California’s safety-net hospitals have achieved robust financial success. To find out how, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with the leadership teams at five such institutions.

This network offers interpretation services to patients and providers at eligible public hospitals in California. Trained health care interpreters operate in 16 languages through an automated video/voice call center.

California's 512 acute care hospitals cared for 3 million inpatients and 42 million outpatients in 2007. This report examines these hospitals in terms of their bed supply and capacity, geographic distribution, ownership type, utilization, and financial health.

This paper describes efforts to improve efficiency in safety-net hospitals through management engineering, a method for diagnosing and correcting problems in service delivery. A companion primer outlines specific methods that have proven successful.

California's critical access hospitals, which play a crucial role in rural and remote areas, can be strongly affected by market shifts. This research looks at the financial health of these small institutions on a variety of dimensions and identifies strong determinants of financial performance.

Leaders of hospitals with palliative care programs speak candidly about the benefits of palliative care for hospitals, patients, and clinicians. Interviews, brief case studies, and resources provide useful information for hospitals interested in program set-up, financial issues, and quality of care considerations.

Nine innovative programs sharply reduce the need for patients to be readmitted to the hospital shortly after being discharged. This report looks at the issues around reducing readmissions and summarizes lessons learned from the case studies.

This issue brief tallies freestanding emergency departments (FEDs), inventories their practices, summarizes their regulation by federal and state governments, and discusses California's FED environment.

This issue brief provides an overview of the extent and impact of ambulance diversion in California, and offers strategies for communities that want to reduce or eliminate it.