Process Improvement

Working with civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH organization, UnitedHealth Group has launched an initiative intended to promote African-American health. The two groups are working to address disparities in the care African-American and other minority communities receive. The partners will also focus on health issues which are proving to be a particular challenge among African-Americans, including diabetes, cancer, coronary disease, asthma and obesity. UnitedHealth will give …

In the wake of a scandal over the falsified credentials of a state public hospital manager, the state's Department of Public Health (DPH) is going on the warpath. The DPH launched a comprehensive review of how it verifies professional licenses and credentials at public hospitals after a social services director at a Boston-area public hospital admitted she'd faked hers. The DPH has begun a program under which the four state-run hospitals re-evaluate their process for verifying …

The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee is holding a hearing next week on the need to study variations in care practices. The stated purpose of the hearing is to consider funding new research on the comparative effectiveness of various treatments and procedures paid for under Medicare. However, such research would doubtless be used aggressively by private health plans, which are equally interested in seeing that their reimbursement policies make sense. Rep. Pete Stark (D), who chairs …

While Medicare's new pay-for-performance program may have some effect on hospital quality, the financial incentives don't have any bigger impact than a hospital's voluntary improvement efforts, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, which looked at data from 54 hospitals in the Medicare P4P program, found that most improved on some important criteria during the test, for example by prescribing aspirin more frequently for …

Quality measures abound in the hospital industry, and each has their virtues. This time, though, Maryland employers have focused in on a set they like, and they've begun a campaign to get hospitals on board. Baltimore and D.C.-area companies, including Lockheed Martin and Marriott, are pushing a group of 46 regional hospitals to participate in the Leapfrog Group's annual hospital quality and safety survey. The surveys, which are progressing in 32 other markets, measure progress in …

A new study suggest that the majority of childhood cancer survivors aren't getting adequate follow-up care later in life. While childhood cancer treatments may save lives, they also create problems of their own, including the risk of new cancers created by treatment-related radiation. In particular, as many as 20 percent of young women and girls treated with chest radiation, commonly used for treating Hodgkin's disease, will develop breast cancer. Another risk: as many has half of the …

A group of medical societies brought together by the American Medical Association continued last week to define its approach on quality measurement. The consortium, which includes more than 100 specialty and state medical societies, has developed 184 physician quality measures to date. The 184 measures address conditions that represent 80 percent of Medicare reimbursement, including asthma, hypertension and heart failure. Now the group, the Physician Consortium for Performance …

A group of three health systems representing 56 hospitals have come together to create a joint quality initiative. The three systems, which include Wellmont Health System, Adventist health System and Novant Health, have developed a program which leverages existing quality measures. Their "Safest Hospital Initiative" uses a template defining the characteristics of a safe hospital, which execs will use to implement critical practices for high-quality patient care. Among other features, the …

Legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives have begun considering a bill that would fund research comparing the effectiveness of standard treatments for common medical conditions. The bill would be financed not only from CMS revenues, but also insurers and employers. The research would then be performed by HHS's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Drug makers and medical device companies will not be asked to fund the research; the assumption is that if they pay in, they …

How can hospitals benefit from the research being done by CMS on pay for performance? In part, just by accepting that improving quality results requires a high level of commitment, according to Richard Norling, CEO of Premier, which runs the P4P pilot on CMS's behalf. Norling, who's in Washington, DC this week for the American Hospital Association's annual meeting, conducted a briefing yesterday on lessons learned from the P4P demonstration program, the Hospital Quality Incentive …