BLUE BELL, PA, August 10, 2000 — (NYSE: ΑET) Aetna U.S.
Healthcare and the Aetna Foundation today announced an important
step in the national campaign against medical error – $840,000 in
grants to researchers at five leading academic institutions to study
issues such as reducing medication errors, controlling infection in
long-term care facilities, and improving safety for surgical
patients.
According to a 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, medical
errors account for between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths each year in the
United States. The IOM study caused a surge of public interest in
the topic and led to a Presidential Order to attack the issue. In
response to the report, Aetna U.S. Healthcare announced in January
that it would devote up to $1 million to fund original research to
develop and evaluate strategies to reduce medical errors. As a
result, five grants were awarded today by the Aetna Quality Care
Research Fund. The grants will be administered by the Academic
Medicine and Managed Care Forum ("Forum"), an alliance of 51
academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, pharmaceutical
companies and Aetna U.S. Healthcare.
"As the IOM study indicates, patient safety is a critical issue
that the health care community must expand its efforts to address.
Aetna U.S. Healthcare has a tremendous opportunity to play a role in
this important national initiative through our activities as the
nation’s leading health insurer and a funder of outcomes-based
research," said John T. Kelly, M.D., Aetna U.S. Healthcare’s
director of physician relations. "We’re pleased that researchers at
some of the nation’s leading academic institutions have agreed to
undertake research into how and why medical errors happen, so that
we can make progress in preventing avoidable complications."
After the January announcement of the request for proposals, an
expedited peer review process was implemented for these grant
proposals so that research could begin as quickly as possible. The
selection committee included representatives from an academic
institution that participates in the Forum, the American Hospital
Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Joint Commission on
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and Aetna U.S.
Healthcare. The grants awarded include:
- $209,147 to the University of
Washington
for "A multidisciplinary approach to
improving surgical patient safety"
- $208,162 to Emory University for
"Administrative pharmacy data: a potential surveillance system for
outpatient adverse drug reactions?"
- $198,570 to the University of Alabama at
Birmingham for "Data mining-enhanced infection control
for long-term care facilities"
- $174,375 to the University of Texas – Houston
School of Public Health for "Improving medication safety
by learning from experience"
- $50,000 to the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
for "The relationship between medication management and
literacy in community dwelling older adults"
All of the studies will commence by Oct. 1, 2000 and are being
funded for a maximum of two years. Study results will be published
in peer reviewed journals.
In addition to Aetna U.S. Healthcare’s funding of outcomes based
research, U.S. Quality Algorithms (USQA®), Aetna U.S. Healthcare’s
performance measurement subsidiary, has collaborated with
researchers on a variety of Forum projects. As part of its study of
adverse drug reactions, Emory University researchers will study the
effectiveness of USQA’s Pharmacy Clinical Performance Report as a
surveillance method to identify Aetna U.S. Healthcare Medicare
members taking a potentially contraindicated drug.
"Administrative data collected by health plans are currently
being used to monitor and improve the quality of medical care
delivered to patients, by using HEDIS measures, for example, to
improve performance. We are interested in seeing whether or not
health plan data can also be used to improve patient safety by
identifying patients at risk of suffering a medication-related
adverse event," said Kimberly J. Rask, M.D., Ph.D, assistant
professor of medicine and assistant professor of health policy and
management, Emory University. Dr. Rask, the researcher leading the
Emory University study, added, "By providing much-needed funding and
access to administrative data through USQA, Aetna U.S. Healthcare is
moving us closer to reaching our ultimate goal of reducing the
incidence of medication errors."
The Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum was created by Aetna
U.S. Healthcare in 1996 to provide an open opportunity for the
exchange of ideas and best practices. At its most recent meeting,
the Forum hosted a day-long discussion of medical errors by some of
the nation’s leading experts in the field including Dr. Lucian L.
Leape, adjunct professor of health policy at the Harvard School of
Public Health, and Dr. William B. Weeks, director of the VA Center
for Learning About the Improvement of Patient Safety. The Quality
Care Research Fund was founded in 1997 and has awarded over $20
million in research grants in the past three years.
In addition to today’s announcement of research grants, Aetna
U.S. Healthcare has undertaken a concerted campaign to help health
care providers reduce medical errors. This includes the development
of programs that integrate medical and pharmacy data in order to
detect and, hopefully, allow physicians to prevent potentially
harmful drug-to-drug and drug-to-disease interactions; encouraging
physician use of hand-held prescribing devices to reduce medication
errors resulting from handwriting mistakes; USQA-produced physician
report cards tracking care patterns for asthma, heart disease and
diabetes; facilitating the use of the Internet in every physician’s
office in the United States by providing physicians with free
Internet access through NetZero and discounted computers through
Hewlett-Packard; and the InteliHealth® consumer health information
website, now the Internet home of consumer health information from
Harvard Medical School, which provides a drug index,
disease-specific information, and on-line chats with leading health
experts. In addition, USQA plans to produce reports during the year
2000 designed to help participating hospitals identify opportunities
for improved clinical performance and assist their efforts to reduce
avoidable medical errors.
Aetna U.S. Healthcare, the health benefits unit of Aetna Inc.
(NYSE: AET), 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. The company provides products and services to
19.4 million health, 11.5 million group insurance, and 14.6 million
dental members nationwide.
