Adverse Events Report
According to the National Quality Forum (NQF), adverse events are serious, clearly identifiable and preventable medical events. BHCAG pressed hard for legislation enacted in 2003 that requires Minnesota hospitals to report annually on the frequency of 28 adverse events, making Minnesota the first state to adopt all of the National Quality Forum’s adverse events by legislative action. The legislation requires hospitals not only to report occurrences of each adverse event, but to develop action plans for prevention and improvement. In addition, an annual public report of the performance of Minnesota hospitals is published for consumer use.
Read the 2011 Adverse Events Report.
On behalf of its members and the community, BHCAG provided seed funding to assist the Minnesota Department of Health in designing their reporting protocol. BHCAG also convenes ongoing discussions with local health plans on how they can work with hospitals to improve performance, use this information to structure their reimbursements to hospitals and promote hospital performance information to consumers.
Learn more about adverse events in Minnesota here.
The Leapfrog Group
BHCAG was a founding member of the The Leapfrog Group when it was established in November 2000 and is the regional representative for the organization’s annual hospital survey. The Leapfrog Group is an employer-driven initiative that aims to “trigger giant leaps in the safety, quality and affordability of health care.” The 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine provided Leapfrog with its initial focus – reducing preventable medical mistakes. The report recommended that employers, as purchasers of health care, provide more market reinforcement for the quality and safety of health care.
Access the results for Minnesota hospitals here.
Minnesota was one of six regions to roll out the Leapfrog Hospital Survey in 2001. The Leapfrog Group now surveys over 1200 hospitals in 40 regions covering 43 states to measure their progress on “leaps” that improve the quality and efficiency of care, and, if fully implemented, would save lives and reduce serious harm to patients.
Each year, BHCAG disseminates the voluntary survey to hospitals in the state of Minnesota asking them to report data on measures that are important to both consumers and purchasers. These measures meet four important criteria:
- There is scientific evidence that their implementation would significantly reduce preventable mistakes.
- Implementation by health care providers is feasible in a short period of time.
- Consumers can appreciate their value.
- Health plans, purchasers and/or consumers can easily ascertain their presence or absence when assessing health care providers.