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NBCH Signs Pledge to Support the Partnership for Patients Initiative for Hospital Quality and Safety
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WASHINGTON – April 12, 2011 – The National Business
Coalition on Health (NBCH), a non-profit membership organization of purchaser-led business
and health coalitions representing a national network of 7,000 employers,
pledged today its support for the Partnership for Patients initiative focused
on decreasing hospital-acquired conditions and preventable hospital
readmissions, estimated to cost more than $50 billion each year. The Partnership for Patients brings
together leaders of major hospitals, employers, physicians, nurses, and patient
advocates along with State and Federal governments in a shared commitment to
make hospital care safer, more reliable and less costly. NBCH will be urging
its coalition members to also sign a pledge to support the Partnership.
“Key to the success of an undertaking as noteworthy as the
Partnership for Patients is the collaboration of the public and private sectors
to leverage purchasing dollars through performance-based contracting with
hospitals to improve quality and safety while reducing costs,” said Andrew
Webber, president and CEO of NBCH. “Purchaser-led coalitions have made great
strides in advancing value based purchasing but recognize that more progress is
needed to link provider payments to performance. By aligning private sector
payment strategies with Medicare as the largest public sector purchaser, we
will be able to accelerate improvements in hospital quality and safety.”
Partnership for Patients seeks to reduce harm to patients in
hospitals and to reduce the rate of readmissions by tying a portion of
Medicare's hospital payments to performance on key metrics related to quality,
readmissions, hospital-acquired conditions, meaningful use of health information
technology and other value based purchasing strategies. In 2013, six percent of
Medicare hospital payments will be tied to performance in these areas and, by
2015, this number will increase to nine percent.
NBCH’s member coalitions have long supported the use of payment
reforms and other market-based incentives to promote improvements in safety,
quality and value. Examples of such efforts already in progress include eValue8™,
the evidence-based
health plan evaluation program widely used by NBCH member coalitions and
national employers to assess plan performance. Through eValue8, coalitions are working with
their employer members to demand that health plans increase the percentage of
total provider reimbursement that is performance based. The most recent eValue8
results indicate that only one percent of hospital payments are tied to
performance. Additionally, a strong contingent of NBCH member coalitions have
organized provider networks on behalf of their employer members and are moving
to pay for performance arrangements in their direct contracting with hospitals.
The commitment to hospital quality, safety and performance
transparency is also evidenced by NBCH’s longstanding support for the Leapfrog
Group. Over half of all NBCH member coalitions participate as Leapfrog regional
roll-out leaders lending community-based support for hospital participation in
the Leapfrog Hospital Survey.
About the National Business Coalition on Health
NBCH is a national, non-profit, membership organization of 53
purchaser-led business and health coalitions, representing over 7,000 employers
and 25 million employees and their dependents across the United States.
NBCH and its members are dedicated to value-based purchasing of health care
services through the collective action of public and private purchasers. For
additional information visit: www.nbch.org.
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