Anthem Blue Cross Announces Initiative Aimed at Preventing Serious Medical Errors; Company Committed to Protecting Members' Health and Finances by Not Reimbursing Major Preventable Adve...(and -- Hospital-acquired injuries suc...),Health

-- Hospital-acquired injuries such as fractures, dislocations,

intracranial injuries, crushing injuries and burns.

"We are listening to our members, business coalitions, and our key accounts who want to know their health plan is looking out for them," said Leslie Margolin, president of Anthem Blue Cross. "As a strong advocate for patient safety, Anthem firmly believes that putting processes in place that focus on preventing these events can have an immediate impact on health care safety and quality."

Anthem Blue Cross is in the early stages of implementation. This allows the company to work alongside hospitals to address the preventability of these events as soon as possible and continue to monitor the activities related to the list of events from the federal, state and private payers, and make adjustments as necessary and appropriate.

Anthem Blue Cross has long been committed to promoting patient safety including:

-- Inclusion of patient safety metrics in Anthem Blue Cross's Quality-in-

Sights Hospital Incentive Program as well as the Member Health Index

(MHI) program, the first program in the industry to track and compare

the collective health of all health plan members based on 20 clinical

areas and 40 separate component measures;

-- Support of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) 5 Million

Lives campaign, a voluntary initiative to protect patients from five

million incidents of medical harm through December 2008; and

-- Participation in Leapfrog's patient safety survey to reduce preventable

medical mistakes and improve the quality and affordability of health

care.

"Anthem Blue Cross's efforts to concentrate on patient safety and work toward eliminating avoidable hospital errors are commendable and commensurate with our goals for a safer health care system that must realign itself to pay on the basis of sa
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