National Committee for Quality Assurance Honors Health Care Leaders with 2003 Health Quality Awards; HHS Secretary Gives Keynote Address 3/26/2003
From: Brian Schilling or Barry Scholl, 202-955-5104 or 202-955-5197, both of the National Committee for Quality Assurance WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) last evening presented its 2003 Health Quality Awards to five recipients: The Honorable John B. Breaux; The Honorable Nancy L. Johnson; former United States Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill; John E. Wennberg, M.D., Director of the Center of the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at the Dartmouth Medical School; and Harvey Picker, Ph.D., founder, Picker Institute. The awards recognize honorees for varied contributions to the improvement of health care quality. Past recipients include former United States Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. and The Honorable Nancy Kassebaum Baker. The evening brought together a diverse range of attendees who have demonstrated longstanding commitments to NCQA's mission. They included The Honorable Tommy G. Thompson, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, who delivered the keynote address, and Susan Dentzer, Health Correspondent and Head of Health Policy Unit, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, who served as Mistress of Ceremonies. "The perspectives of our honorees are diverse-public, private, academic-but the goal of improving health care quality is the same," said NCQA President Margaret E. O'Kane. "For our health care system to fulfill its vast potential, we need to find the ideas that work and apply them to our common objective. Our honorees' accomplishments are an excellent place to start." The 2003 honorees are: Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) Senator Breaux is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, an immediate past chairman of the Senate Aging Committee and a past co-chairman of the Medicare Reform Commission. His efforts to find legislative solutions for the problem of the uninsured and to expand consumer choice in the Medicare program reflect NCQA's mission to improve health care quality. As a champion of public reporting of quality-based information to support consumer choice models, Senator Breaux has helped to build the foundation for NCQA's work in quality evaluation and measurement. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.) Rep. Johnson is the chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee and, as a student of the health care system, has been a passionate advocate for health quality improvement. She has supported and sponsored important patient safety legislation, advocated for Medicare disease management programs and led the call for broad public reporting of health care quality information. The Honorable Paul O'Neill, Former Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill was honored for his pioneering efforts in helping to create the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, which works to eliminate both medication errors and hospital-acquired infections. The initiative also created report cards to help doctors and hospitals identify areas for improvement and sought to curb duplicated services. Since his return to Pittsburgh, O'Neill has continued his work on improving health care and education and to make the region a leader in performance excellence. Harvey Picker, Ph.D., Founder, Picker Institute Through his founding of the Picker Institute, Dr. Picker has helped raise the industry standard for assessing patient experiences with the care provided by applying the patient perspective to performance measurement. By allowing patients and family members to report on their experiences, the Picker Institute equips hospitals and staff with information through which they can address specific areas for improvement. John E. Wennberg, M.D., Director, Center of the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Dartmouth Medical School Dr. Wennberg has earned international acclaim for his research into and publication of The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which examines the patterns of medical resource intensity and utilization in the United States. The Atlas project also reports on patterns of end-of-life care, inequities in the Medicare reimbursement system and the underuse of preventive care. For more information on the 2003 Health Quality Awards and NCQA, visit the NCQA Web site at http://www.ncqa.org. Additional photos of the event are available upon request. NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations and manages the evolution of HEDIS(r), the performance measurement tool used by more than 90 percent of the nation's health plans. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information through the Web and the media in order to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices. ------ Editor's note: High resolution, publication-ready photos supporting this story are available for free editorial use at: http://www.wirepix.com/newsphotos/USN |