Medical Alert
Data to help employers identify safest hospitals
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Julie Bryant
Georgia employers may soon be willing to offer a financial carrot to hospitals that comply with certain safety standards.
The Georgia Healthcare Leadership Council, in partnership with The Leapfrog Group, a national consortium of Fortune 500 companies and health-care purchasers, has steadily been collecting patient safety data from local hospitals.
That data, which details how well hospitals adhere to medical error prevention guidelines laid out by LeapFrog, is expected to be handed over to employers by January. Employers, in turn, will use the data to determine which hospitals are safest for their employees, said James Purcell, president of the leadership council.
Already in New York, four large employers, including Verizon Communications, IBM Corp., PepsiCo and Xerox Corp., have unveiled a $2 million financial incentive program to encourage hospitals there to adopt patient safety guidelines, said Purcell. Those guidelines include requiring doctors to use a computerized system for prescription drug orders to help prevent medical errors.
LeapFrog also wants hospital intensive care units staffed with physician specialists during regular business hours, said Purcell, and recommends employers engage in so-called evidence-based hospital referrals. Evidence-based referrals route certain patients to hospitals that perform the highest number of procedures a year, such as heart bypass surgery.
The majority of metro Atlanta hospitals have submitted their LeapFrog performance surveys and some employers are considering giving a financial incentive to those hospitals with the best safety performance, said Purcell.
The Healthcare Leadership Council also plans to launch two new health-care programs next year. The first is a $50,000 grant to support early stage child development programs, said Purcell.
The council also will partner with Schering-Plough Corp. to fund training for primary care physicians who deal with patients infected with hepatitis C, a particularly deadly form of the virus.
Double Funding
Over the last five years, Emory University's Woodruff Health Sciences Center has almost doubled its federal research funding to more than $232 million.
At the close of 1995, the health sciences center had drawn in $116.8 million in federal research dollars. By August 2001, that number reached $232.9 million.
Last year 16 faculty members at Emory's School of Medicine received federal grants of $1 million or more, compared to seven faculty members in 1996, said Emory spokesperson Holly Korschun.
Under new leadership, Emory's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing more than doubled its research funding in 2000 alone and moved from 37th place to 20th place in terms of federal National Institutes of Health funding to nursing schools.
The Rollins School of Public Health also has doubled its research dollars in the past five years.
Space was the greatest limiting factor in drawing down even more research funding, said Korschun. The health sciences center is in the process of adding 1.8 million square feet of research, clinical and teaching space to its campus.
New Systems
Cigna Healthcare of Georgia will bring more health-insurance claims processing in-house and roll out a new HMO product in 2002.
Cigna, which reported more than 55,000 members enrolled in its Georgia HMO product alone as of Sept. 30, has undergone a significant transformation internally in terms of operating systems, said Robert A. Yungk, the new president of Cigna Healthcare of Georgia. Yungk left his position as executive vice president of local market operations for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia earlier this year, joining Cigna June 1.
Cigna will drop from 15 claims systems nationwide to two. In the past, Cigna has outsourced some of its claims processing and will now be doing more processing internally, said Yungk.
In response to consumer demand, Cigna also will launch a new open-access HMO product next year, which will allow HMO members to go out of network for care at a higher premium cost.
Award Winner
Synovus Financial Corp. is the winner of this year's ACE (Achievement of Corporate Excellence) in Benefits award.
The awards, sponsored by Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB), are designed to recognize benefits professionals and companies that initiate novel changes to their benefit programs.
Synovus won for its Employer of Choice programs, which include nontraditional benefits aimed at meeting the needs of a diverse employee population.
If you have news for Medical Alert, contact Julie Bryant at (404) 249-1023; fax, (404) 249-1058; or e-mail (jbryant@bizjournals.com).
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