Excellus BCBS Expands Partnership with Hospitals to Combat Hospital-Acquired Infections, Save Lives

ROCHESTER, NY (11/07/2007)(readMedia)-- Excellus BlueCross BlueShield officials today announced that the health plan will invest up to $5 million to expand a multi-year partnership program with upstate New York hospitals to reduce hospital-acquired patient infections that could help save lives and reduce costs.

“We can think of no better partnership opportunity than working together with hospitals to improve the health care of our communities and simultaneously reduce costs,” said David Klein, Chief Executive Officer for Excellus BCBS.

The offer to provide funding and expertise will first be made to hospitals that have already expressed a desire to join the partnership for infection reduction. The health plan would then set up a grant review process to review additional requests.

“Our goal is to offer program participation to 15 additional hospitals by the end of this year and create up to 30 additional partnerships by the end of 2008,” said Dr. Martin Hickey, Senior Vice President, Health Care Affairs, Excellus BCBS. “With seven hospitals already participating in a pilot program, up to 52 hospitals could be assisted by our health plan in the patient safety initiative by the end of next year.”

Identities of hospitals that have indicated an interest will not be disclosed until the partnership is formalized and the program is underway. “Some hospitals are addressing infection reductions in other ways and we commend them for whatever actions they are taking,” Hickey noted.

In late 2005, Excellus BCBS set up a pilot program and contracted with Cardinal Health’s MedMined™ services to reduce hospital-acquired infections in seven upstate New York hospitals. Those hospitals are:

  • Arnot Ogden Hospital, Elmira
  • Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Binghamton
  • Rome Memorial Hospital, Rome
  • St. Elizabeth Medical Center, Utica
  • St. Joseph Hospital Health Center, Syracuse
  • United Health Services, Inc., Johnson City
  • Unity Hospital, Rochester

MedMined™ services, a part of Cardinal Health, is a recognized leader in technology-based health care services. Hospitals were identified for the pilot based on their locations, patient volumes and willingness to share with the Health Plan in the program’s initial cost.

In just under two years, the seven hospitals involved in the pilot:

  • reduced the number of infections, resulting in better patient outcomes, reduced lengths of stay and lowered costs;
  • reduced patient exposure to unnecessary medical tests;
  • complemented existing safety initiatives and supported measurable improvements;
  • realized an approximate 200 percent return on the total first-year investment.

The expansion will enable additional hospitals to join with these seven pilot hospitals in a regional collaborative that provides forums for shared learning, best practice dissemination and maximizes the investment in this service to improve patient safety.

The partnership will provide access to preferred pricing from MedMined™ services, funding support from Excellus BCBS, and inclusion in the network of dedicated professionals engaged in the quest for zero infections in their hospitals.

MedMined™ services provides partners with access to process monitoring and patented data mining technology to continuously analyze a hospital’s patient population for community and hospital-acquired infections. When unusual patterns are detected, the hospital’s infection control team is alerted so it can focus intervention and education efforts where they’re needed most and where they’ll have the greatest potential for dramatic improvements in patient care and safety.

The hospitals also get real-time electronic access to infection-related clinical data in order to help with reporting, charting and automating alerts.

An estimated 19,500 upstate New Yorkers acquired an infection during a hospital stay in 2004 and nearly a thousand deaths were likely to have occurred as a result, according to an Excellus BCBS analysis of hospital admissions data and projections from national studies on hospital-acquired infections, deaths and costs. Spending on infections was projected at $157 million. “The Facts About Hospital-acquired Infections in Upstate New York” may be found in the Public Policy & Research section of https://www.excellusbcbs.com

“There are some issues in health care that are extraordinarily complex and difficult to solve,” Klein said, “but there is a wealth of information about hospital-acquired infections and what steps can be taken to reduce them. We tried an approach with willing partners who were generally pleased with the initial results. We now want to expand the program to further help our communities.”

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Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, a nonprofit independent licensee of the BlueCross BlueShield Association, is part of a family of companies that finances and delivers vital health care services to 2 million people across upstate New York. Excellus BlueCross BlueShield provides access to high-quality, affordable health coverage, including valuable health-related resources that our members use every day, such as cost-saving prescription drug discounts and wellness tracking tools in our StepUp program. To learn more, visit https://www.excellusbcbs.com

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