UPS and Bridges to Excellence reward quality across the health care system

An Institute of Medicine (IOM) report states that to improve the quality of health care in America, providers need to change their fundamental processes.

Bridges to Excellence was developed in response to the IOM report, and its purpose is to create programs that will realign everyone's incentives around higher health care quality.

• Patients are rewarded with better health through high quality physicians, confidential, sophisticated online tools and information, and redeemable reward points.
• Providers who provide high quality, efficient care are financially rewarded for getting and keeping their patients healthier.
• Purchasers, like UPS and other large corporations, are rewarded with a healthier workforce and greater value.

UPS, one of the founders of Bridges to Excellence, has taken a leading role in advocating change in the health care industry. This program exemplifies UPS's health care quality initiative – matching patients with appropriate physicians to improve quality of care, reducing inefficiency, and keeping employees healthy.

UPS and the Leapfrog Group are dedicated to quality healthcare

One of UPS's fundamental goals is to ensure that employees have access to the highest quality healthcare. Working together with other healthcare purchasers is one way UPS can impact healthcare quality.

UPS is a member of the Leapfrog Group – a consortium of more than 90 companies and organizations dedicated to improving quality of care and safety for patients. Leapfrog is concerned with patient safety – especially the safety of patients in hospitals where preventable mistakes often occur. Through research and discussion, the Leapfrog Group has identified the following ways to reduce preventable mistakes:

• Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE) System
  A computerized prescription system that warns doctors of possible allergies, incorrect dosages, and interactions with other drugs when prescribing medications. Entering prescriptions via the computer instead of handwriting them reduces errors and automatically checks against current patient information for prescription conflicts. It can also eliminate prescription errors caused by illegible handwriting.
  
  
• Evidence-based hospital referral
  Some hospitals do a better job with complicated surgeries like angioplasty or cancer than others. Choosing a hospital for surgery based on the number of times a procedure is performed each year gives patients the best chance for a quick recovery.
  
  
• Intensive Care Unit (ICU) staffing
  When ICUs are managed by doctors trained in critical care, patient recovery can be quicker and less costly. Choosing a hospital with an adequately staffed ICU is important.

Concentrating on these three areas for improvements, UPS and other Leapfrog Group members are working with hospitals at the local level to promote these initiatives. Check the Leapfrog Group Web site at www.leapfroggroup.org for updates on how hospitals are progressing toward these goals.

Leaps in patient safety

The Leapfrog Group recently conducted a voluntary and ongoing patient safety survey among urban and rural hospitals in six U.S. regions. For more information on this survey, please click here.

Your health, your choice

The Leapfrog Group provides information to help consumers make more informed healthcare choices – something UPS is committed to providing its employees. By communicating with and educating employees about healthcare issues, UPS helps employees make informed choices. Employee choices indirectly impact UPS cost, and it is important to help UPS families make educated healthcare choices. More educated and informed choices mean greater efficiency for employees as they navigate the complex path of healthcare and treatments. Greater efficiency and healthier families benefit both UPSers and UPS.