Blue Companies Honored For Programs That Help Consumers Better Manage Asthma, Hospitals Improve Patient Safety

Harvard Medical School researchers commend Blue companies for collaboration and data sharing that results in better care and reduces healthcare costs

December 5, 2006

CHICAGO - Blue Cross of California (BCC) and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL) are being honored today by the Harvard Medical School Department of Health Care Policy for their innovative and successful approaches to helping improve quality of care and lowering healthcare costs. By partnering with healthcare leaders, local officials and physicians, BCC's efforts decreased local members' asthma-related hospital use by 60 percent and their average hospital stay by one day. BCBSIL's initiative created a unique hospital-specific and comparative data report in collaboration with more than 180 hospitals to reduce medical errors and save lives.

"We applaud these programs for putting Blues' unique data to work by sharing it with communities and hospitals and collaborating to address such important healthcare issues," said Barbara McNeil, MD, Ph.D., chairman, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School.

The programs also are being celebrated as part of "BlueWorks for Employers" Week (Dec. 4-8) to promote awareness of the healthcare challenges facing employers and the programs that are tackling them successfully.

In 2004, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) launched an initiative - referred to as BlueWorks - in collaboration with the Harvard Medical School Department of Health Care Policy to evaluate Blue Cross and Blue Shield company initiatives that improve healthcare quality and access in local communities. Through BlueWorks, researchers at Harvard Medical School select winning initiatives based on their importance to the healthcare system, breadth of applicability, and level of innovation. Since its inception, more than 35 programs have been recognized by Harvard.

"Blue companies are passionate about delivering better knowledge and sharing it in a way that helps people live healthier lives," said Scott P. Serota, BCBSA president and CEO. "These programs are addressing disease management and patient safety in innovative ways that are positively impacting the health of consumers and the costs which impact employers."

Disease Management
Asthma, for example, is responsible for approximately 14.5 million annually missed adult work days and can negatively impact employee productivity, especially if they are exposed to asthma triggers at their workplace, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, annual per capita employer expenditures for asthmatic patients are approximately 2.5 times those of other employees, according to a 2002 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

When BCC's member claims data analysis revealed that ER use had increased nearly 44 percent in a year in Fresno County - an area where childhood asthma prevalence was well above that of the state and nation and where 20 percent of BCC's members with asthma lived - the company immediately engaged in a more in-depth assessment and special community outreach efforts. BCC joined healthcare leaders, local officials and physicians in forming the Fresno County's Valley Air Committee Partnership to address these concerns.

BCC's efforts have led to a decrease of local members' asthma-related hospital use by 60 percent and their average hospital stay by one day. By conducting special community outreach efforts and bringing its own valuable data to the committee, BCC helped identify a strong correlation between poor air quality and the increase in asthma-related conditions, and worked to develop best practices to combat the disease.

Improving Patient Quality Of Care
In addition, more than 44,000 Americans lose their lives and are affected by preventable medical errors in hospitals each year, with the annual cost of medical errors reaching nearly $17 billion, according to the Institute of Medicine.

BCBSIL has successfully supported better quality of care in this area by sharing its comprehensive data set with all 184 local hospitals in its network and collaborating with them to improve patient safety.

Using nationally-recognized patient safety and quality of care indicators, the BCBSIL program aggregates, analyzes and reports data from multiple sources including utilization and administrative efficiency measures, member, physician and hospital survey results, and BCBSIL claims data. Hospital-specific reports and comparative data are then sent to participating network hospitals on an annual basis to help evaluate the best approaches for improving patient safety.

Additionally, the information has been publicly reported since March 2005, including through Leapfrog - a growing consortium of Fortune 500 and other large private and public employers, that have agreed to emphasize patient safety in their purchases of healthcare - thus enabling consumers to formulate their own decisions and hospital choices.

For more information about the "BlueWorks for Employers" effort and programs that have been awarded the BlueWorks distinction, please visit www.bcbs.com/blueworks.