Health Care Excellence Award presented to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Public opinion poll detailing attitudes on consumer involvement and responsibility in health care unveiled
Boston, MA, April 2, 2007
National and local health care leaders explored the critical elements for delivering high performance health care, at High Performance Health Care: What it Takes, today at the Omni Parker House.
More than 300 members of the health care community, including physicians, hospital chief executive officers and quality improvement directors, national, state and local legislators and leaders of public and private industry attended the health care policy event co-sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) and Inquiry, the health care public policy journal. Follow this link to View a Detailed Report of Conference Findings (PDF).
Dr. David Pryor, MD, Senior Clinical Officer, Ascension Health in St. Louis, kicked-off the conference by discussing what it takes for hospitals and health systems to consistently provide safe, high-quality, effective and efficient care.
A panel discussion on the same topic followed with local and national health care executives such as Paula Friedman, Corporate Vice President of Strategy and Systems Improvement, SSM Health Care, and Dr. Uma Kotagal, MBBS, MSc, Senior Vice President for Quality and Transformation at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. SSM Health Care, the first winner of the health care Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, and Cincinnati Children's Medical Center have been recognized nationally for the substantive changes made within their organizations to improve the quality of patient care. Dr. Kotagal described how an institution needs to create a culture that is driven towards the elimination of all preventable medical errors.
"Perfection goals are fundamentally necessary," said Dr. Kotagal.
Jennifer Sosin, President of KRC Research delivered the results from a public opinion poll focusing on attitudes on consumer involvement and responsibility in health care. Following this presentation, a second panel discussion with local health care leaders and experts discussed the findings of the poll. Panelists John McDonough, Executive Director of Health Care For All, Jim Roosevelt, CEO of Tufts Health Plan, Susan Connolly of Mercer and Dana Safran of BCBSMA gave their perspective on issues of consumer involvement in health care including health care literacy, online provider comparison tools, and how to better engage consumers to be more knowledgeable users of the health care system in an effort to improve quality and drive health system change.
BCBSMA President and CEO Cleve Killingsworth presented the first Health Care Excellence Award to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at the conference. The $100,000 award, which will be given annually by BCBSMA, was created to recognize exceptional achievement in improving the safety and effectiveness of health care in Massachusetts. More than 40 health care organizations throughout Massachusetts, including teaching and community hospitals, health centers and state agencies, completed nomination papers for the award.
"Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has successfully changed its culture and achieved significant results through this initiative," said Cleve Killingsworth, BCBSMA's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Their model is replicable and widely adaptable for other health care organizations."
"We are honored to be the first recipients of the BCBSMA Healthcare Excellence Award," said Dr. Sachs. "Our philosophy is that health care has much to learn from the science of safety and quality developed by other industries, and that the search for quality is a never-ending journey."
"We believe that we were only able to embark on this journey as a result of being willing to confront a patient's loss and accept responsibility," Dr. Sachs added. "We have learned that apologizing to patients, when errors occur, empowers us to improve and allows patients to heal."
The conference closed with a compelling afternoon keynote address by Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and co-founder of the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, which was established in 1997 to achieve perfection within the healthcare system in Southwestern Pennsylvania. O'Neill reflected on the impact of the initiative since its inception a decade ago and drew on his experience leading corporate entities and health care organizations to discuss the increasing importance of achieving health system change.
"In a really great system," said O'Neill, "the process does not allow people to get hurt."
About Blue Cross Blue Shield MA
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (www.bluecrossma.com) was founded 69 years ago by a group of community-minded business leaders. Today, headquartered in Boston, BCBSMA provides coverage to 3 million members. BCBSMA believes in rewarding doctors and hospitals for delivering safe and effective care, and in empowering patients to take more responsibility, become educated health care consumers and become stronger partners with their doctors. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
INQUIRY is a peer-reviewed scholarly publication. Now in its 42nd year, it is published quarterly by Excellus Health Plan, Inc. Press releases and article abstracts are available at www.inquiryjournal.org.