Integrating Serious Illness Care Into Primary Care Delivery
Approximately 5% of Medicare beneficiaries (2.2 million Americans) are living with serious illness, as are many other non-Medicare eligible individuals. This number is expected to grow rapidly as the population ages and the prevalence of progressive illness increases. In many communities, particularly urban and rural underserved areas, primary care clinicians are the main workforce caring for patients with serious illness, which underscores the need to integrate high quality serious illness care into primary care delivery. As a means of better understanding the challenges and opportunities for integrating serious illness care into primary care settings, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness hosted a virtual workshop on June 10 and 17, 2021. The workshop, called Integrating Serious Illness Care into Primary Care Delivery, explored the shared principles of primary and serious illness care, the interdisciplinary teams that power both disciplines, the policy issues that can act as barriers to or incentives for integration, and best practices for integrating primary care and serious illness care. The workshop proceedings summarize the presentations and discussions that occurred during the event. The document can be obtained here.
The Colleges Where Low-Income Students Enjoy The Highest ROI
College typically pays off for low-income students, but not as much as it does for their peers. Low-income students have a lower return on investment (ROI) than all students across public and private institutions and certificates, associate’s degrees, and bachelor’s degrees, largely because they tend to earn less as adults, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW). The Colleges Where Low-Income Students Get the Highest ROI finds that overall, these students receive the best financial returns from attending public institutions, where costs are generally lower. Low-income students, whose families earn $30,000 or less per year, comprise more than one-third of college students. Among institutions that primarily award bachelor’s degrees, public institutions generally lead to the highest ROI for these students during a 40-year timeframe ($951,000), followed by private nonprofit institutions ($863,000) and for-profit colleges ($763,000). Although for-profit colleges have the lowest overall returns among institutions that predominantly award bachelor’s degrees, their student bodies have the greatest share of Pell Grant recipients (56%), followed by those of public institutions (36%) and private nonprofit institutions (35%).
The report and rankings can be obtained here.
National Six-Year College Completion Rate For Students Starting College In 2015
The national six-year completion rate for students who started college in 2015 reached 62.2%, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That rate is an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the fall 2014 cohort and 1.5 percentage points over the 2013 cohort. The report tracks enrollment and completion outcomes for all students who entered higher education for the first time in fall 2015, enrolling full-time or part-time at more than 3,600 two-year and four-year institutions, through June 2021. Students from all starting institution types saw increases in completion rates, with the largest increase among community colleges starters (+1.5 pp). Completion rates increased for White, Latinx, and Black students this year, with the largest jump among Black students (+1.9 pp), while Asian student completion rates remained virtually unchanged. Adult learners (older than 24 at first entry) showed the largest completion rate increases, particularly at the public four -year and community college sectors. Traditional college-age students continue to see higher completion rates than older students of both genders. The report can be obtained here.