Business Group Calls For Improved Health Care Quality And Safety Standards
A health benefits advocacy group representing 250 large employers has issued a set of recommendations urging employers that offer health care benefits to demand that hospitals and other medical providers meet standards for quality and safety.
The National Business Group on Health—which counts among its members very large employers such as Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Dell, and IBM—announced in October it is adopting three broad recommendations aimed at reducing health care costs and lowering rates of avoidable death and injury.
As its first recommendation, the Business Group advised employers to refuse to pay medical claims for avoidable medical errors. Among the errors that should never be tolerated, the group asserted, are wrongful surgical procedures and medication errors resulting in death or serious disability.
"There is a groundswell of support at the state and national levels for hospitals and health plans to report medical errors," said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health. "Employers should not pay for so-called 'never events' and over the next six months, we will be working with health plans, providers, consumers and employers to develop methods for tracking and not paying for avoidable medical errors."
In addition, the group recommended that employers demand from top-level management of hospitals and health care systems in their preferred networks a commitment to make improving health care safety and quality the highest priority. Specifically, the Business Group advised employers to require preferred providers to actively participate in two ongoing projects devoted to reducing medical errors: the 100,000 Lives Campaign and the Surgical Care Improvement Project.
In its final recommendation, the Business Group called upon employers to require the health care providers in their preferred networks to implement health information technology, including electronic medical records and personal health records for all patients.
"Adopting and using health information technology will reduce medical mistakes by making patient-specific information and the latest condition-specific information readily available to treating providers at the point of care," said Darling. "We are rapidly approaching the time when health care organizations and providers must rely on information technology to be credible providers of safe, quality care."
