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News Release
Dallas Businesses Commit To National Initiative For Improving Quality and Value in Health Care In a meeting today in Dallas with HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, executives from area businesses signed statements of support for a national initiative aimed at improving health care quality, information and cost-effectiveness for employees and their families. Altogether, more than 9 million people will benefit by implementation of this initiative in Texas. Employers signing on include Aetna, American Airlines, AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Texas, CIGNA HealthCare, Dallas-Fort Worth Business Group on Health, EDS, Exxon Mobil Corp., Humana, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Sabre Holdings, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, Texas Instruments, United HealthCare, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Valero, Verizon and VHA Inc. In signing statements of support, the executives pledged to provide quality and price information about doctors, hospitals and other medical providers for all enrollees in their health care insurance programs. This information will help employees choose health care providers based on the quality of care they deliver and the prices they charge. In addition, the employers will support health information technology by encouraging the use of recognized interoperability standards in the health IT products used by their health plans. They also pledged to develop incentives for achieving better value in health care, including incentives for high quality care and for more active involvement by employees in choosing their health care services. President Bush committed federal health programs to the four cornerstones through an Executive Order last August. In November, Secretary Leavitt invited all employers, in both the private and public sectors, to take these same four steps. By committing to these goals, Secretary Leavitt said, "Our individual actions will be aligned toward reaching the common national goal of better health at lower costs for all Americans. Today, purchasers here and in Houston are joining with the federal government in adopting the four cornerstones of value-driven health care." The Texas employers are joining a growing number of states and companies that are pledging to make quality and price information available to health plan enrollees in order to enable them to compare providers when they purchase health care services. "I am proud that leading Texas employers are choosing to support these four cornerstones to achieve better health care and better value for employees and their families," Secretary Leavitt said. "Until now, it has not been possible for patients to learn in advance about the quality of care they can expect to receive from a provider, or the cost of the services they will incur. By making this information available, employers can help their employees get better care and better value in health care." For most purchases, consumers expect to compare cost and quality as they make decisions. But until now, this information has not been available in the health care sector. Patients have not been able to compare provider performance, either on dimensions of quality or on cost. "With the commitment that employers like these are now making, this situation will change," Secretary Leavitt said. "Patients will come to expect quality and performance information about health care providers. They will expect to have price or cost information in advance to make good value decisions about their care. They will use this information to improve health care value for themselves and their families. And the choices they make will help improve value and health care quality across the health care sector." Secretary Leavitt also recognized the Dallas-Fort Worth Business Group on Health as Community Leader. The group has shown a commitment to the four cornerstones and aims at growth in stakeholder participation and quality measurement capacity. On February 28, Secretary Leavitt unveiled a plan for chartering local collaborative organizations that are working to improve quality and value in health care by assessing the performance of local health care providers and reporting these findings publicly. The plan would bring the local collaboratives into a nation-wide system, and the collaboratives would use nationally-recognized standards to measure and improve quality of care in their local areas. Under the plan, HHS would select qualified regional collaboratives to be chartered as Value Exchanges. In such collaboratives, local area physicians, nurses, hospitals and other health care providers are working collaboratively with health plans, employers, unions and other health care purchasers to achieve reliable public reporting on quality and cost of care. As HHS-chartered Value Exchanges, they would continue to focus on quality improvement and would provide public reports on the performance of providers in their area. For information, visit http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2007pres/20070228.html. More information on Value-Driven Health Care is available at www.hhs.gov/transparency. For a full list of companies who have signed statements of support, including those signing in Texas today, visit: http://www.hhs.gov/transparency/employers/statements.html.
### Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news. Last revised: March 2, 2007 |
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