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Michigan Hospitals Support Comprehensive Initiative to Prevent Medical Errors and Improve Patient Safety

Posted on: Thursday, 26 June 2008, 12:03 CDT

LANSING, Mich., June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Already recognized as national leaders in improving patient safety, Michigan hospitals today announced a comprehensive new initiative that will combine extensive patient safety data collection and analysis, best practices in delivering care and a new billing policy for a set of serious adverse health care events.

Through the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA), the state's hospitals and health systems:

-- Have established a new Patient Safety Organization (PSO) that will collect and analyze data about medical errors and near misses in Michigan hospitals. Data collected will aid health care providers in better understanding why some errors occur.

-- Will, based on the PSO analysis and input from experts, develop and implement best practices at the bedside to prevent errors before they happen to ensure the best patient outcomes possible.

-- Will not seek payment from patients, government health care programs, nor from private health insurance plans when certain "serious adverse events (SAEs)" occur. An SAE is defined as a serious condition that results from medical errors or improper care that can reasonably be expected to be averted.

Despite the best efforts of health care providers, errors sometimes occur while caring for patients. Michigan hospitals are committed to providing the best possible care and implementing science-based treatment and operational improvements to prevent errors.

"Every day, caregivers in hospitals work to provide the best care possible to patients through the use of sophisticated error prevention systems, information technology and care protocols. Unfortunately, human error can, and does, occur," said MHA President Spencer Johnson. "Michigan hospitals support nonpayment policies when circumstances warrant. But the best policy for Michigan patients, payers and providers is to be more aggressive in preventing errors, and proudly that's exactly what our members are voluntarily electing to do."

Doug Deck, President & CEO of Munson Healthcare in Traverse City, led the MHA task force that developed the association's SAE initiative.

"Michigan hospitals once again are taking extraordinary actions to identify and enact health care quality improvement protocols that will prevent the occurrence of SAEs and improve patient safety," Deck said. "Without question, Michigan hospitals are leading the nation in implementing voluntary and comprehensive measures to make health care safer."

MHA's Keystone Center for Patient Safety & Quality, founded in 2003, has been recognized by medical peer review journals, media and others as a national leader in improving health care safety and quality. The MHA Keystone Center provides evidence-based, best-practice interventions aimed at making care safer, improving the quality of care, enhancing the culture of safety, improving staff satisfaction, and eliminating unnecessary or avoidable costs. In just one MHA Keystone collaborative - MHA Keystone: ICU - more than 1,700 lives and more than $246 million in health care costs have been saved in Michigan alone.

The MHA's Patient Safety Organization will expand the scope of Keystone by initially focusing on a select set of SAEs identified by the National Quality Forum and near misses. The MHA's approach also includes the active participation of Michigan physicians and health plans, key allies in preventing errors and improving patient safety and health care quality.

Michigan hospitals have agreed not to seek payment for seven initial SAEs that are determined to be preventable. Johnson noted that these SAEs are "very rare" in Michigan hospitals and, in fact, the vast majority of Michigan hospitals already do not seek payment for these SAEs:

-- Object left in after surgery -- Air embolism as a result of surgery -- Blood incompatibility -- Pressure sores (Stages 3 or 4) -- Surgery on the wrong patient -- Surgery on the wrong body part -- Wrong surgery

In addition, MHA member hospitals have agreed not to seek payment for the following adverse health care events:

-- Catheter-associated urinary tract infections -- Vascular catheter associated infections -- Surgical site infection associated with CABG surgery -- Hospital acquired injuries (falls and burns)

The MHA's new SAE billing policy is consistent with a new federal rule advanced by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that will deny payment to hospitals for eight hospital acquired conditions beginning October 1, 2008. In addition, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and other private insurers are expected to implement a SAE nonpayment policy.

In the coming months, the MHA will work with the state's 146 hospitals, physicians and health plans to hone and implement the new patient safety initiative.

Michigan Health & Hospital Association

CONTACT: Lori Latham, Michigan Health & Hospital Association,+1-517-881-7911 - cell

Web site: http://www.mha.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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