Anthem Blue Cross Joins Up With Hospitals on Patient Safety Effort
On Tuesday, Anthem Blue Cross of California announced that it would contribute $6 million for a collaborative project designed to boost patient safety and curb health care costs in the state, the Los Angeles Times reports (Helfand, Los Angeles Times, 1/20).
The three-year project, called Patient Safety First, will operate as a partnership between:
- Anthem Blue Cross;
- The Hospital Association of Northern and Central California;
- The Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties;
- The Hospital Association of Southern California; and
- The National Health Foundation (Los Angeles Daily News, 1/19).
The initiative will invite hospital medical workers to meet quarterly in person or online to compare strategies and best practices for reducing hospital-acquired infections and other medical problems (Los Angeles Times, 1/20).
For its first stage, the project will focus on:
- Lowering the number of elective early births;
- Decreasing the incidence of sepsis; and
- Reducing the incidence of hospital-acquired infections in intensive care units (Sacramento Business Journal, 1/19).