Show Controlling Health Care Costs: IHC Is Among the Nation’s Leaders Quality management could slash the nation ’s $500 billion annual health care bill by 20 according to IHC’s Brent James MD Here’s how IHC’s pioneering work can help the US Q How do you “measure” medical care? unique in its advanced We have a capabilities called IHCNet that network large computer will eventually link all IHC facilities doctors' offices and health plans together into a complete information pail IHCNet will store each patient's medical history personal information and lab test results into a central database One of the most valuable resources on IHCNet will lie the Health Evaluation James: Editor's note: In March 11)89 the American Hospital Association selected IHC’s quality management program as the national model for quality health care - the prescription to achieve high quality medical treatment at loiver costs Below is an Dr Brent inteiriew with Harvard-traineJames director of medical research at IHC who led development of this model d Q Dr James the AHA has said the pioneering work in quality management you’ve done at IHC can sene as a model for the entire nation Could this help reduce what America pays for health care? Every year Americans pay some health care We think quality management could reduce that "bill" - while the quality of by as much as 20 James: $5(X) billion for medical care improves through Logical Processing (HELP) System which was developed at LDS Hospital HELP analyzes data on a large scale making it the perfect research tool Q turns out just the opposite is true As we try to improve our medical care we're finding that die better we do things die more money we sa e Our motto Is “Do it right the first time - every time” We search for ways to “do it right” by measuring and quantifying What we re really doing is learning how to imprcne our medical treatments by studydie care we provide ing extra-carefull- y implements is side benefit lower costs Can patients the hospital saved patients a world of suffering and reduced costs by an estimated S 400 000 per year That’s impressive How many other hospitals are doing these studies? Q No other hospital in this country has undertaken a study like this IHC is a James: national leader in quality improvement for three reasons: 1 IHC is a fully 2 We understand the costs of health care an independent group found of US hospitals could that only 17 the unit costs of the measure accurately sendees they provide We've been measuring our costs for 14 years you give an example? Dr John Burke heads die departdiseases at LDS Hospital of infectious ment and one of his projects Is to measure infection rates He was especially interested in die use of antibiotics prior to surgery (called “prophylactic antibiotics”) to reduce die infecnumber and severin' of tions He used die HELP System to do a study of “prophylactic antibiotic” use at LDS Hospital over a period As a result of die study Burke discovered the following: of these If you can prevent a medical complication or eliminate an unnecessary prcx'edure you can help people get better faster and save money in the bargain 1 The optimal time to administer the antibiotics is nvo hours before surgery of deep surgical wounds at developed infections after the surgery (32 cases in six months) This was an excellent rate 2 Only 18 LDS Burke then went back recommended better timing of the deliver' of preventive antibiotics and did a second study using HELP By improving the timing of the antibiotics the percentage of elective surgeries that developed wound infections was cut in half from 1 8 to 9 ! This is a very low rate - very few hospitals can achieie this kind of result integrated hospital system that can collect and analyze data ProPac James: It An important is 3 post-surgic- Q How is it possible that the highest quality medical care is also the least expensive? One would think that higher quality would cost more James: IHC By adopting this slight change in how antibiotics were administered to surgery e developed HELP - recognized as the finest clinical health information system in existence HELP gives us the tools to improve quality and cut costs Vi you’re trying to improve quality and cut costs in all areas of medical care? Q So In every area Vie look for the best way to do something then we try to eliminate inappropriate deviations from the process We re not only eliminating unnecessary procedures we're catching potential James problems before they happen The work IHC is doing will help Utah maintain one of the shortest average lengths of stay in the nation (54 days) in the nearly the lowest expense-per-capit- a nation and an that's lower than both the US and mountain region statistics When quality comes first efficiency s follow Aid we are conand stantly trying to improve the quality of the care we pro ide m cost-saving- |