Friday, May 6, 2011

Billion-Dollar Patient Care Initiative

Some local news with national ramifications today. The Department of Health & Human Services announced a new $1 billion health care initiative called Partnership for Patients. The goal is to reduce hospital mistakes that injure or even kill patients. If successful the program could save up to $35 billion.

Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas has been chosen as the bulls-eye of this target to improve health care. Baylor was selected as one of the dozen locations for the program because their Dallas heart and vascular hospital has the nation's lowest readmission rate so it's starting from a higher plateau than most hospitals. The goal of the program is to reduce hospital mistakes by 40% and readmissions by 20%.

We're even going to get to look at the results of the program and judge its cost effectiveness for ourselves because the data will be posted at www.healthcare.gov.

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