Bridges to Excellence Announces Five New Physician Recognition Programs With Potential to Save Billions of Health Ca...( Doctors can now use new program measu...),Health

Doctors can now use new program measures and work with EMR vendors to provide high levels of quality care for asthma, COPD and heart conditions

NEWTOWN, Conn., June 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Bridges to Excellence (BTE), the nation's most extensive effort to recognize and reward high-performing physicians, announced five new programs to assess the improvement in the diagnosis, treatment and management of chronic conditions such as asthma, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), coronary artery disease and hypertension. The new programs cover the majority of the health care costs in the system today and the bulk of patients providers are seeing.

"Our work has shown that there are significant avoidable costs associated with the management of these conditions," said Francois de Brantes, BTE CEO. "By reducing preventable complications incurred by most patients with these chronic conditions, we could significantly improve the health of employees and save employers billions of dollars."

The BTE programs are designed to provide incentives that reward physicians and practices for adopting better systems of care that result in physician practice reengineering, the adoption of health information technology and delivering good outcomes to patients. Doctors who demonstrate excellent performance can earn recognition and also qualify for incentives from participating employers and health plans.

New Care Link Programs:

-- Asthma Care Link

-- Congestive Heart Failure Care Link

-- COPD Care Link

-- Coronary Artery Disease Care Link

-- Hypertension Care Link

"Our emphasis to-date has been on encouraging the adoption of systems of care -- including EMRs (Electronic Medical Records) -- as well as demonstrating the use of those systems in delivering good results in patient management," said de Brantes. "It's time to swi
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