Thomson Reuters Honors Keystone Mercy and AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plans and Tallahassee Memorial ...( ANN ARBOR Mich. May 8 /- Thomson Reut...),Health

ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Thomson Reuters on Thursday honored two Pennsylvania health plans and a Florida hospital system for significantly improving the quality and managing the cost of healthcare.

Keystone Mercy and AmeriHealth Mercy health plans and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare are overall winners of the Thomson Reuters 2009 Healthcare Advantage Award, which honors hospitals and healthcare payers that use data analytics to improve business results and the quality of care.

Keystone Mercy and AmeriHealth Mercy, managed care health plans serving more than 400,000 Medicaid recipients in Pennsylvania, were cited for initiatives that assess and report on physician performance and identify gaps in patient care.

As a result of these efforts, more of the health plans' members received recommended care and preventive screenings, which lowered hospital admissions and emergency room visits. In addition, improved HEDIS rates are expected to result in an additional $6.2 million in payments from the state's Pay for Performance program.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, a not-for-profit system that includes a 770-bed acute care hospital, was cited for two initiatives:

• Deployment of a dashboard report that gives hospital administrators critical information about key trends and clinical outcomes so they can determine where to focus process changes and improvement initiatives. This dissemination of better intelligence improved clinical performance and helped reduce mortality by 23 percent.

• A strategic marketing project that identified growth opportunities that could increase the hospital's contribution margin $5 million over the next five years.

"Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and Keystone Mercy and AmeriHealth Mercy have made an inspiri
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