"Pay-For-Performance: Too Much of a Good Thing? A Conversation With Martin Roland," Health Affairs: In a Health Affairs Web exclusive, Robert Galvin -- director of global health care for General Electric -- interviews Martin Roland -- director of the National Primary Care Research and Development Center at the University of Manchester in England -- about the United Kingdom's Quality and Outcomes Framework program, a countrywide pay-for-performance program. Roland discusses policies that have worked, as well as those that have not worked, in implementing the QOF program and offers advice for the U.S. in implementing similar programs that use financial incentives to improve quality of care (Galvin, Health Affairs, 9/5).

JAMA Study, Editorial

• "Effectiveness of University of California Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Programs in Increasing Medical School Matriculation for Minority and Disadvantaged Students," Journal of the American Medical Association: In a study for JAMA, Kevin Grumbach, principle investigator and director of the Center for California Health Workforce Studies at the University of California-San Francisco, and Eric Chen, project analyst for the program, examine whether post-baccalaureate premedical programs that target underrepresented and disadvantaged students are effective in increasing medical school admission rates. The study finds that out of 265 participants in post-baccalaureate premedical programs in 1999 through 2002, 67.6% had been admitted to medical school by 2005. In addition, 22.5% of 396 college graduates who applied to post-baccalaureate premedical programs but did not participate had been admitted to medical school by 2005, according to the study. The study finds that the programs are effective in increasing the number of medical students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups (Grumbach/Chen, JAMA, 9/6).
  
  
• "Building a Diverse Physician Workforce," JAMA: In an editorial responding to Grumbach and Chen's study, Jordan Cohen and Ann Steinecke, both of the Association of American Medical Colleges, write that the study is "timely" because the U.S. medical field needs documented ways to achieve racial and ethnic diversity, noting that in 2005 fewer than 13% of graduating medical students were minorities. According to the editorial authors, the study findings support the belief that strong academic preparation and mentoring will help to offset some disadvantages experienced by minority students who are interested in careers in medicine and that many college graduates will require post-baccalaureate premedical programs to be successful medical school applicants (Cohen/Steinecke, JAMA, 9/6).