BLUE BELL, PA, January 3, 2000 — (NYSE: ΑET) In an effort to contribute to the national campaign to
reduce avoidable medical errors, as recently addressed by an Institute of Medicine
(IOM) report, Aetna U.S. Healthcare announced today two major new initiatives:
a $1 million grant program to fund original research to develop and evaluate strategies
to reduce medical errors and plans for the development of a program to share
information with hospitals participating in the Aetna U.S. Healthcare network.
The $1 million grant from the Aetna Quality Care Research Fund
will be administered through the Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum, an alliance of
forty-six academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and Aetna
U.S. Healthcare. Priorities for research on medical errors and strategies to improve patient
safety will be identified by an advisory panel, and grants will be awarded through an
independent peer review process.
Through the second initiative, U.S. Quality Algorithms®
(USQA), the quality measurement affiliate of Aetna U.S. Healthcare, will develop plans
to produce reports during the year 2000 designed to help participating hospitals improve
their clinical performance and assist their efforts to reduce avoidable medical errors.
"Because of our commitment to Raising the Quality of
Healthcare® in America, Aetna U.S. Healthcare, through cooperation with our participating
physicians, our member hospitals and health care researchers, is launching these important
new initiatives to help reduce the unacceptable number of avoidable medical errors that
occur every year. By supporting research into the causes of medical error, and leveraging
our information systems and data analysis capabilities, we hope to provide assistance in
this critical effort to improve patient safety," said John T. Kelly, M.D., Aetna U.S.
Healthcare's director of physician relations. "For the past five years, USQA® has released
reports to participating physicians in an effort to help them improve patient care. Within
the confines of patient confidentiality guidelines, we will expand our information sharing
initiatives to help our participating hospitals improve patient safety," Dr. Kelly said.
"Managed care organizations have an important role to play
in reducing these errors. I welcome today's announcement that Aetna is making research
funding available and is taking concrete steps to help our health care system address
this serious problem," said Molly Coye, M.D., a member of the IOM Committee and senior
vice president of the Lewin Group.
"I am confident that we will make progress toward
reducing medical errors as a result of this new research initiative. It is our hope
that many lives will be saved as a result of these efforts," said David Bates, MD,
Chief of the General Medicine Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and a
pioneer in using computer systems to improve patient care.
"The IOM study indicates that there is much work to be
done to reduce prescribing errors in our health care system," adds Frank Young,
M.D., former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. "Managed care organizations
like Aetna are developing new approaches and systems to reduce these and other medical errors.
Today's announcement that they are funding new research, and using their existing databases of
medical information in new and creative ways are important steps to improve the quality of
medical care and reduce prescribing errors. To maintain the confidence of the American
people in HMO's, such leadership is essential."
Aetna U.S. Healthcare is the nation's leading health
and related benefits organization, providing a full spectrum of products ranging from
health maintenance organizations (HMOs) to indemnity health insurance, group life and
disability products, and dental, vision, and pharmacy benefits to approximately 29 million
Americans. In addition, Aetna U.S. Healthcare provides quality measurement and improvement
programs and data analysis for providers and purchasers of healthcare through U.S. Quality
Algorithms, and supports medical research through the Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum.
