Chicago-area Physician Hospital Organization Receives Patient Safety Award

5/13/2004

From: Ed Domansky of Advocate Health Care, 630-990-5610

OAK BROOK, Ill., May 13 -- Advocate Health Partners (AHP) proudly announces that it has been selected as the first recipient of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago/Chicago Patient Safety Forum/Otho S. A. Sprague Recognition Award in Patient Safety. The Award in Patient Safety was presented May 12 at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago.

Recognizing the important contributions AHP has made to enhancing patient safety, the award notification letter offers the following praise: "You should feel particularly pleased since currently many health professional and healthcare organizations are actively promoting patient safety programs."

"This recognition came as a very pleasant surprise and shows how some in the market place value the AHP Clinical Integration Program and its impact on enhancing clinical outcomes," said Lee B. Sacks, M.D., president of Advocate Health Partners. "AHP was nominated for this award by a major health insurer, after presenting our Clinical Integration Program to their leadership. We think this speaks volumes about the impact of our efforts to make the value of clinical integration a more mainstream element of the provider-insurer relationship."

AHP is a physician hospital organization (PHO) that is jointly owned by physicians and hospitals. It has developed an innovative program of clinical integration across eight hospitals of the Advocate Health Care system and 2,800 physicians. This program provides incentives to align almost 2,200 physicians in independent practice, 600 employed physicians and eight hospitals to collaborate and adopt strategies to improve patient safety. AHP physicians represent about half of the physicians on staff at the eight hospitals.

All AHP physicians are required to use new technologies known to reduce errors and improve patient safety. Examples include the following: 1) Physicians must establish a high-speed Internet connection in their offices to access "CareNet," a network that provides access to lab and diagnostic tests conducted anywhere within the Advocate system and also establishes a shared communication platform; 2) Physicians must use Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) as part of Advocate's CareConnection initiative; and 3) Physicians must provide their ICU patients the additional benefit of monitoring by intensivists in Advocate's "electronic ICU," a remote, centralized intensivist-led care team that uses enabling technology to continuously monitor, assess and intervene on patients in support of onsite caregivers within an ICU. With 142 ICU beds presently online, Advocate has the largest eICU(r) Care program in the country.

AHP physicians are similarly required to adopt evidence-based practices and protocols related to specific diseases such as diabetes, asthma, congestive heart failure (CHF), coronary artery disease, pneumonia and deep vein thrombosis for the primary purpose of reducing preventable complications. Advocate is one of just a few organizations nationally to have received disease- specific certification from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) for its programs in asthma and CHF. Finally all physicians must attend regular meetings to review related clinical evidence from the literature and evaluate their progress in meeting integration goals.

The new award will be presented annually to an individual, or a group of individuals, or an organization from the Chicago metropolitan area that has made major contributions to improve patient safety through leadership, advocacy, research, systems improvements, or related venues.

eICU is a registered trademark of VISICU, Inc. of Baltimore.

Advocate Health Partners is the care management and managed care contracting joint venture between Advocate Health Care and physicians on the medical staffs of its hospitals. It is a unique organization, committed to delivering high quality medical care to patients through the alignment and integration of hospitals and physicians.

Oak Brook-based Advocate Health Care, the largest health care provider in Illinois, has ranked among the nation's top 10 health care systems for seven consecutive years. Advocate's dedicated physicians and associates strive to be leaders in clinical excellence. At Advocate, quality of care is more than just words. A faith-based, non-profit system, Advocate is related to both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ. Advocate's 200-plus sites of care in metropolitan Chicago include eight acute care hospitals and two children's hospitals, a home health care company and three of Chicago's largest medical groups.

With 25,000 employees, Advocate is the second largest private employer in Chicago and the only health care provider listed among the 25 best places to work in Chicago. Through a long-term academic and teaching affiliation with the University of Illinois at Chicago Health Sciences Center, Advocate trains more resident physicians than any non-university teaching hospital in Illinois. For more information about Advocate Health Care, please visit http://www.advocatehealth.com