Home Health System Tracker Series

Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker

The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker is an online hub monitoring how well the U.S. health system is operating through key quality and cost measures. A partnership of the Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF, the Tracker documents trends in Health Spending, Quality of Care, Access & Affordability, and Health & Wellbeing through issue briefs and downloadable chart collections. The Tracker also includes the Interactive Health Spending Explorer tool, which helps users analyze more than 50 years of health expenditure data, and a Health System Dashboard, which provides quick and easy access to the latest, most relevant statistics.

View the Latest: Health System Tracker

Filter

List Grid

111 - 120 of 177 Results

  • Analysis: Many Private Insurers Offer Financial Relief for COVID-19 Treatment, but Cost-Sharing Waivers Are Expiring

    News Release

    A new analysis finds that most people with individual or fully-insured group market coverage are in plans that waived cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment, though many of those waivers are set to expire in the coming months. About 88% - nearly nine in ten - enrollees in the individual and fully-insured group markets are covered by plans that have taken action to limit out-of-pocket costs for patients undergoing treatment for COVID-19 since the start of the…

  • How Private Insurers Are Using Telehealth to Respond to the Pandemic

    Issue Brief

    Private insurance plans have taken a variety of steps to expand telemedicine uptake and access during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new issue brief on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker examines four actions private insurers have taken to promote telehealth usage among plan enrollees.

  • The Veterans Health Administration’s Role During the COVID-19 Response

    Issue Brief

    A new issue brief examines the role of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) during the coronavirus pandemic, and public health emergencies more broadly. The analysis finds that the VHA has provided assistance to 46 states and D.C., including treating over 270 non-veteran patients with coronavirus.

  • Updated Dashboard Features New Data on U.S. Health System Performance

    News Release

    Newly updated and expanded, the Peterson-KFF Health System Dashboard compiles data on the U.S. health system’s performance in four areas: access and affordability, health and well-being, health spending, and quality of care. Users can explore trends over time, as well as disparities and differences across demographic groups.

  • Nearly 1 in 10 Health Care Workers Lost Their Job Between February and April, But Health Care Employment Rebounded Slightly in May

    News Release

    A new chart collection explores the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the U.S. health care workforce, and finds that between February and April 2020, nearly 1.5 million health care jobs were lost. While more than 300,000 health services jobs were recovered in May 2020, mainly in dental offices, employment in some health care settings continued to decrease. The rise in health care unemployment follows a sharp decline in utilization and revenue for non-emergency services. Many providers…

  • Interactive Maps Highlight Urban-Rural Differences in Hospital Bed Capacity

    News Release

    As the U.S. coronavirus outbreak spreads beyond densely populated metropolitan areas, a new KFF analysis finds that rural areas typically have fewer intensive care hospital resources than their urban counterparts, and populations at greater risk of developing serious illness and complications from COVID-19. While metro and non-metro areas have similar numbers of hospital beds per capita (23.5 vs 23.8 beds per 10,000 people), non-metro areas have fewer intensive care (ICU) beds – about 1.7 per 10,000 people,…

  • Urban and Rural Differences in Coronavirus Pandemic Preparedness

    Issue Brief

    The coronavirus outbreak has hit densely populated urban areas of the United States first and hardest. Some health systems have experienced surges of patients, raising concerns that there are not enough hospital beds, staffing, and equipment. The novel coronavirus was slower to spread to rural areas in the U.S., but that appears to be changing, with new outbreaks becoming evident in less densely populated parts of the country. A new issue brief looks at urban-rural…

  • How Health Costs Might Change with COVID-19

    Issue Brief

    As the coronavirus spreads rapidly across the United States, private health insurers and government health programs could potentially be burdened with higher health care costs. However, the extent to which costs grow, and how the burden is distributed across payers, programs, individuals, and geography are still very much unknown. A new issue brief, available in full on the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker, explores some of the factors driving health costs upward and downward, as well…

  • How Prepared is the U.S. to Respond to COVID-19 Relative to Other Countries?

    Issue Brief

    Compared to most similarly large and wealthy countries, the U.S. has fewer practicing physicians per capita but has a similar number of licensed nurses per capita. Looking specifically at the hospital setting, the U.S. has more hospital-based employees per capita than most other comparable countries, but nearly half of these hospital workers are non-clinical staff.

  • The U.S. Has Fewer Physicians and Hospital Beds Per Capita Than Italy and Other Countries Overwhelmed by COVID-19

    News Release

    A new analysis and chart collection finds that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds and practicing physicians per capita than many similarly large and wealthy countries with health care systems already strained by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to Italy and Spain, two countries in which hospitals have already been overwhelmed by an influx of COVID-19 patients, the U.S. has fewer practicing physicians per capita - 2.6 per 1,000 people, compared to 4.0 in Italy…