PBGH Bimonthly E-Letter Debuts
Welcome to PBGH Spotlight, the inaugural issue of the Pacific Business Group on Health’s bimonthly E-Letter on our activities. Aimed at a broad audience of purchasers, health care professionals, policymakers and others, the Spotlight aims to keep you abreast of PBGH’s efforts to improve health care quality and efficiency. Specifically, we will bring you regular news on progress and challenges in our three main objectives: quality measurement and improvement, value purchasing, and consumer engagement. We will link or refer you to supplemental sources of information when appropriate. If you want a friend or colleague to receive the Spotlight, please forward this email and they can register at www.pbgh.org/news/eletters/default.asp. If you would rather not continue to receive it, simply respond and put "cancel" in the subject line of your email.

Health Plan Chooser Tool Helps Consumers Find Best Fit
In May, PBGH launched an interactive "chooser tool" to help consumers choose a health plan option that is affordable, includes their doctor and meets individual needs (news release). The highly sophisticated software application debuted on the Web site of PacAdvantage, the small-group purchasing pool affiliated with PBGH. The chooser tool is now being offered as a customizable Intranet feature to PBGH members, a number of whom will use it in their open-enrollment season this fall. To try out the chooser tool, go to the PacAdvantage Web site.

PBGH Fosters Growth of Leapfrog California California hospitals continue to complete Leapfrog’s patient safety survey, which measures hospitals’ status on three proven practices to reduce preventable medical mistakes. Currently, 159 hospitals—48 percent of the state’s eligible hospitals, representing 62 percent of annual discharges—have "self-certified," and more are expected.

The three Leapfrog "leaps" are:

• Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE)—Doctors in hospitals use a computer system to order tests and prescription drugs.
• ICU Physician Staffing—ICUs are staffed by physicians certified in critical-care medicine.
• Evidence-Based Hospital Referral—Patients requiring certain complex treatments are channeled to hospitals that do a high volume of the treatment.

As leader of the Leapfrog initiative in California, PBGH has mailed invitation letters to both participants and non-participants, urging them to participate or renew their surveys by September 15. New data will be posted on HealthScope in time for open enrollment. For more information, click here. For a national perspective, visit the Leapfrog Group Web site. To see how California hospitals measure up, go to the HealthScope Web site.

PBGH Promotes Standardized Hospital Performance Measures PBGH is a member of the National Quality Forum (NQF), a not-for-profit organization developing a national strategy for health care quality measurement. This year, NQF proposed an initial set of standardized measurements for hospitals. PBGH and other consumer and purchaser groups recently recommended improvements to the proposed set, including the following:

• The initial set should encompass all six aspects of quality as defined by the Institute of Medicine in its March 2001 report, Crossing the Quality Chasm—safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency and equity.
• The set should be expanded from a few dozen to more than 50 measures.
• Among the criteria for effectiveness, clinical importance should be given top priority.

PBGH’s efforts are part of our work to promote standardization in measurement and build the platform for the use of quality and value information by consumers and purchasers.

On the PBGH Web site, visitors can view both the cover letter and extensive comments to NQF from the Alliance, the National Partnership of Women and Families, PBGH and allied consumer and purchaser organizations. Viewers are also encouraged to read A User's Manual for the IOM's 'Quality Chasm' Report that Don Berwick published recently in Health Affairs.

Partners Slash Red Tape Faced by Providers
The Provider Group Oversight Improvement Project (P-GO) is a collaborative effort to reduce redundant audits and surveys that California medical groups must undergo as contracting providers for health plans. P-GO participants include the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA), PBGH and the project’s grant-making partner, the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF). Recent achievements include:

• Groundbreaking certification by NCQA of seven California medical groups, thus eliminating the need for credentialing oversight audits by health plans. (news release)
• Development of standardized performance measures for medical groups.
• Development and testing of standardized categories of appeals and grievances for health plans and medical groups.
• Preparation of a list of recommended processes and specifications for collecting clinical measures for Pay for Performance, an initiative of the Integrated Healthcare Association to create a common physician-group scorecard on prevention, chronic care management and patient satisfaction. (news release)

To learn more about P-GO, click here.

PBGH To Update State of California HMO/Medical Group Report Card
PBGH has won a competitive bid by the state Office of the Patient Advocate to update the consumer Web site created last year. The update of the California HMO Report Card will go live in mid-September. In a first for the report card, it will feature ratings of California medical groups. To learn more about the report card, click here.

Visit Our New Web Site
PBGH has completed the redesign of the PBGH corporate Web site, www.pbgh.org. It has a new look and feel, completely updated information and a new "Members Only" section. Features include:

• New home page that allows us to "spotlight" a program or event and to communicate "what's new" at PBGH.
• "About PBGH," providing background information such as our mission and goals.
• "Programs," describing activities and initiatives.
• Expanded "News" section with current and archived press releases.

Also in the News section is a Spotlight subscription tool. There are links to our other sites, HealthScope, PacAdvantage and Calinx as well as ways to contact us. "Pop-up" pages help explain some of the terms that may be unfamiliar to visitors.

The Members Only section enables us to post documents, so that members have an easy place to retrieve PBGH materials provided at board meetings, user tools developed to assist their organizations on a variety of issues, and other confidential documents.

PBGH Spotlight is published by Pacific Business Group on Health 221 Main Street Suite 1500 San Francisco, CA 94105 phone: 415.281.8660 For more info, contact info@pbgh.org www.pbgh.org © 2000-9 PBGH