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Biomedical subjects

Suzanne Delbanco

Publications and source records attributed to Suzanne Delbanco.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Awards. The Leapfrog Group for Patient Safety: rewarding higher standards.

BACKGROUND: The Leapfrog Group is a consortium of more than 145 large health care purchasers committed to a common set of purchasing principles through which to leverage dramatic improvements in the safety, quality, and overall value of health care. Leapfrog purchasers mobilize consumers to seek out higher-quality providers, and they reward higher-quality providers. Leapfrog is primarily operationalized through Regional Roll-Outs--locally led purchaser efforts. PATIENT SAFETY RECOMMENDATIONS: The Leapfrog Group purchasers first focused on three patient safety practices, or "safety leaps," to reduce preventable medical errors--computer physician order entry, evidence-based hospital referral, and intensive care unit (ICU) physician staffing. Leapfrog's leaps are refined and updated annually on the basis of evidence and input from experts in the field. IMPACT ON PATIENT SAFETY: On the basis of survey results from the first 22 Regional Roll-Outs, as of September 2003, 4% of 633 hospitals reporting from the 22 regions fully met the CPOE standard, and an additional 17% of the 633 said they would meet the standard by 2005. Survey results also showed that 22% of the 605 hospitals in the 22 regions with ICUs met Leapfrog's ICU staffing recommendations and that an additional 5% would meet the standard by 2004. NEXT STEPS: In 2004 Leapfrog will launch new Regional Roll-Outs, bringing Leapfrog consumer education, hospital-specific information, and purchasing strategies to more communities nationwide.

Awards and Prizes↗
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Consumers and quality-driven health care: a call to action.

A key strategy for driving improvements in health care quality is providing comparative quality information to consumers. This strategy will not work, and could even be counterproductive, unless (1) consumers are convinced that quality problems are real and consequential and that quality can be improved; (2) purchasers and policymakers make sure that quality reporting is standardized and universal; (3) consumers are given quality information that is relevant and easy to understand and use; (4) the dissemination of quality information is improved; and (5) purchasers reward quality improvements and providers create the information and organizational infrastructure to achieve them.

Benchmarking↗
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Has the leapfrog group had an impact on the health care market?

A number of large employers and public purchasers founded the Leapfrog Group in 2000 in an attempt to consolidate the purchaser voice and engage consumers and clinicians in improving health care quality. Drawing on evidence-based medicine, Leapfrog publicly releases information about the extent to which hospitals are adopting three safety "leaps" with the theoretical capacity to prevent thousands of deaths. Although the group has grown rapidly and achieved national recognition, employer-based initiatives historically have struggled to create changes in health care. This paper examines the impact of the Leapfrog Group and its efforts to address the challenges of employer initiatives.

Health Care Coalitions↗
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Why employers need to rethink how they buy health care.

Employers will continue to have a key role in the U.S. health system. Unfortunately, their purchasing practices have fallen far short of ideal. Large employers can lead the way for smaller companies, but by not routinely using competitive bidding or integrating quality into their specifications, they have sent mixed messages to both health plans and providers. Employers need to either get serious about buying health care as individual companies or explore other options. To purchase effectively, both health care expertise and the sustained commitment of senior leadership are needed. Whether employers can reverse their historical performance and become better purchasers is an open question.

Commerce↗
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Between a rock and a hard place: understanding the employer mind-set.

Large and mid-size employers are "between a rock and hard place" when it comes to health benefits: They are both unable to manage their health care costs effectively or simply get out of offering these benefits entirely. Although there is considerable diversity in how employers approach health care, several goals underlie most of their decisions. It is unlikely that the current round of employer-based health initiatives will succeed at managing rising costs. As a result, employers are likely to become more interested than at any time in the past decade in exiting their roles as providers of health benefits.

Cost Control↗