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Some health indicators for Latinos tend to be more positive than socioeconomic status would predict. Yet, Latina women and their young children use fewer preventive health services and have a higher incidence of preventable diseases than non-Hispanic whites. The Institute of Medicine recently called for intervention research among minority subgroups to end racial and ethnic disparities in health care. To help guide future intervention research, this article presents a critique and synthesis of the peer-reviewed literature on interventions that enroll Latina women into preventive reproductive health services (prenatal care, cervical cancer screening, and child immunizations). Results are presented according to three categories of interventions: improvements within formal health care settings, outreach through lay health advisors ( promotoras) and media, and interventions combining these approaches. An agenda for intervention research is proposed for preventive-care use by this population.

In response to evolving policies and conditions, hospitals have increased health information technology (HIT) adoption and strived to improve hospital–physician integration. While evidence suggests that both HIT and integration confer independent benefits, when combined, they may provide complementary means to achieve high performance or overlap to offset each other's contribution. We explore this relationship in the context of hospital adherence to evidence-based practices (EBPs). Using the American Hospital Association's Annual and IT Supplement surveys, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services's Hospital Compare, we estimate the independent relationships and interactions between HIT and hospital–physician integration with respect to EBP adherence. HIT adoption and tight (but not loose) integration are independently associated with greater adherence to EBPs. The interaction between HIT adoption and tight integration is negative, consistent with an offsetting association between HIT adoption and integration in their relationship to EBP adherence. This finding reveals the need to be aware of potential substitutive effects from simultaneous pursuit of multiple approaches to performance improvement.

Health care practitioners and change experts contend that organizational readiness for change is a critical precursor to successful change implementation. This article assesses how organizational readiness for change has been defined and measured in health services research and other fields. Analysis of 106 peer-reviewed articles reveals conceptual ambiguities and disagreements in current thinking and writing about organizational readiness for change. Inspection of 43 instruments for measuring organizational readiness for change reveals limited evidence of reliability or validity for most publicly available measures. Several conceptual and methodological issues that need to be addressed to generate knowledge useful for practice are identified and discussed.

Health care organization leaders and policy makers seeking ways to reform the delivery of health care have become increasingly interested in transformational change. To foster understanding of how organizational transformation occurs and to stimulate further research, we report findings from a systematic review of empirical research on transformational change in the health care and non–health care literature, with a focus on the antecedents, processes (or paths), and outcomes of transformational change. Fifty-six studies, of which 13 were in health care, met our selection criteria. With one exception, all were published since 1990, indicating the recent upsurge of interest in this area. Limited differences were found between health care and non–health care studies. Available research documents the multiplicity of factors affecting change and the complexity of their interactions, but less information is available about the processes of transformational change than about its antecedents and consequences. Research and practice implications are discussed.

Gender pay equity is a desirable social value and an important strategy to fill every organizational stratum with gender-diverse talent to fulfill an organization's goals and mission. This study used national, large-sample data to examine gender difference in CEO compensation among not-for-profit hospitals. Results showed the average unadjusted annual compensation for female CEOs in 2009 was $425,085 compared with $581,121 for male CEOs. With few exceptions, the difference existed across all types of not-for-profit hospitals. After controlling for hospital- and area-level characteristics, female CEOs of not-for-profit hospitals earned 22.6% less than male CEOs of not-for-profit hospitals. This translates into an earnings differential of $132,652 associated with gender. Explanations and implications of the results are discussed.

The rate of successful health care innovation implementation is dismal. Middle managers have a potentially important yet poorly understood role in health care innovation implementation. This study used self-administered surveys and interviews of middle managers in health centers that implemented an innovation to reduce health disparities to address the questions: Does middle managers' commitment to health care innovation implementation influence implementation effectiveness? If so, in what ways does their commitment influence implementation effectiveness? Although quantitative survey data analysis results suggest a weak relationship, qualitative interview data analysis results indicate that middle managers' commitment influences implementation effectiveness when middle managers are proactive. Scholars should account for middle managers' influence in implementation research, and health care executives may promote implementation effectiveness by hiring proactive middle managers and creating climates in which proactivity is rewarded, supported, and expected.

Over the past 10 years, the field of health services and management research has seen renewed interest in the use of qualitative research methods. This article examines the volume and characteristics of qualitative research articles published in nine major health services and management journals between 1998 and 2008. Qualitative research articles comprise 9% of research articles published in these journals. Although the publication rate of qualitative research articles has not kept pace with that of quantitative research articles, citation analysis suggests that qualitative research articles contribute comparably to the field's knowledge base. A wide range of policy and management topics has been examined using qualitative methods. Case study designs, interviews, and documentary sources were the most frequently used methods. Half of qualitative research articles provided little or no detail about key aspects the study's methods. Implications are discussed and recommendations are offered for promoting the publication of qualitative research.