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EmblemHealth Supports The Leapfrog Group's
Patient-Safety Improvement Efforts

A report by the institute of medicine found that tens of thousands of Americans die each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals.

The Leapfrog Group is a group of national public and private health insurance purchasers established to use their collective power to initiate improvements in the safety of health care for Americans. The goal is to reduce the total number of deaths each year due to preventable medical mistakes in hospitals.

The Leapfrog Group recognizes hospitals for their advances in patient safety and educates the public about hospital quality standards, better equipping patients to make informed health care decisions.

The Leapfrog Group identified three main goals for its health care initiatives, including:

• Elimination of prescription drug errors with computer physician order entry (CPOE). Adverse drug reactions are the leading cause of avoidable death and disability in American hospitals. Using computerized prescription systems in hospitals saves lives because the systems are linked to prescribing error prevention software.
• More specialized care for intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Research shows that the quality of care in hospital ICUs is influenced by whether staff physicians who specialize in caring for the critically ill provide the care. Hospital ICU care should be managed by physicians certified or eligible for certification in critical care medicine. They should be present during daytime hours, provide care exclusively in the ICU, and return ICU pages within five minutes.
• Increased utilization of evidence-based hospital referral. Providers should refer patients for treatment to hospitals and clinical teams with superior outcomes. Studies suggest that selecting hospitals with the best results has a positive link to patient outcomes. This process can reduce a patient's risk of dying from some procedures by more than 30 percent.

Research supports that hospitals meeting the Leapfrog standards can significantly reduce avoidable patient suffering, as well as the economic cost of medical mistakes. Under the program, hospitals that use CPOE systems for prescription drugs and staff their ICUs with physicians who are board-certified or board-eligible in critical care medicine will be recognized for their commitment to patient safety.

EmblemHealth supports The Leapfrog Group's patient-safety improvement efforts and identifies those hospitals that participate in Leapfrog's safety initiatives with a special icon (shown right). The icon links to www.leapfroggroup.org and provides access to information about which hospitals either meet CPOE and ICU staffing standards or are in the process of implementing these programs. The link brings you to the most up-to-date listings of Leapfrog participating hospitals in New York.

For more information about these patient-safety initiatives, please logon to The Leapfrog Group's web site at www.leapfroggroup.org. Please send general inquiries to info@leapfroggroup.org, or write to THE LEAPFROG GROUP c/o AcademyHealth, 1801 K Street, NW, Suite 701-L, Washington, DC 20006. You may also call 202-292-6713.