Independence Blue Cross Set to Present on Patient Safety Strategies for Lower Costs, Healthier Outcomes at PA Nurses Summit

Independence Blue Cross Set to Present on Patient Safety Strategies for Lower
Costs, Healthier Outcomes at PA Nurses Summit

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Kathy Donohue, R.N. of
Independence Blue Cross (IBC), will present on a patient safety panel as part
of the Pennsylvania State Nurses Summit this morning at 10:30 a.m. at DeSales
University in the Lehigh Valley. Donohue will share multiple programs and
strategies that Independence Blue Cross has introduced over the past nine
years to assist physicians and hospitals in improving patient safety
throughout southeastern Pennsylvania.

"As a health insurer, IBC is committed to working with physicians to improve
the quality of health care for members and the community, and introduced a
comprehensive patient safety program in 2001," said Donohue, manager of
provider improvement and member safety at IBC. The program was created in
response to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report, To Err is Human, which
concluded that nearly 100,000 hospitalized patients die each year because of
medical error.

"We designed a program focused on patient safety to reduce medication errors,
surgical mistakes, and to improve patient safety overall for our members,
striving to make the Philadelphia region the safest place to receive health
care," Donohue adds.

With member safety as an ongoing top concern, one of the initiatives IBC has
developed is a robust clinical program called the targeted drug utilization
review (DUR). Medication therapy for certain conditions can produce dramatic
benefits, but only when prescribed medications are used as intended by the
physician. When patients don't take medications as directed, they put
themselves at risk for worsening disease and reducing the quality of their
care.

"This program was created to help improve the members' health by providing
valuable pharmacy data to doctors," Donohue explains. "This way, doctors can
better work with their patients who are noncompliant with taking
prescriptions, or who might be receiving improper doses or combinations of
medications, or who may be abusing narcotics." IBC then communicates the
misuse or potentially inappropriate prescriptions to their providers. She says
that through this program, IBC is able to help prevent serious health risks
for members who may unknowingly be taking unsafe drug combinations prescribed
by multiple doctors.

There are other components to the patient safety program at IBC. For example,
"the Partnership for Patient Care is an innovative collaboration that brings
IBC together with participating Philadelphia-area hospitals to improve health
care quality for members," Donahue says. Since the Partnership began, its
projects have:

-- improved adoption of processes that prevent surgical site infections,
such as increased control of blood sugar in patients ready to undergo
surgery and optimized use of antibiotics before and after surgery;
-- implemented best practices for the prevention of blood infections
associated with central line placement;
-- helped prevent life-threatening blood clots that can develop during
hospitalization;
-- improved the prevention of patient falls and initiated region-wide
standardization of falls reporting;

-- raised awareness about the threat of MRSA (methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus) through a unique grass-roots approach - a Fight
MRSA! campaign with school students.

Other topics of nursing education at the 2009 Summit include guiding patients
toward change through motivational interviewing, reducing exposure to
hazardous substances in the workplace, and promoting evidence-based practices
in clinical care. The Pennsylvania State Nurses Summit attracts nurses of all
disciplines from across the Commonwealth and offers attendees 7.8 contact
hours of continuing education credit. The Pennsylvania State Nurses
Association is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.

Independence Blue Cross is a leading health insurer in southeastern
Pennsylvania. Nationwide, Independence Blue Cross and its affiliates provide
coverage to nearly 3.3 million people. For more than 70 years, Independence
Blue Cross has offered high-quality health care coverage tailored to meet the
changing needs of members, employers, and health care professionals.
Independence Blue Cross's HMO and PPO health care plans have consistently
received the highest ratings from the National Committee for Quality
Assurance.

Independence Blue Cross supports comprehensive health care reform that would
extend coverage to all Americans, reduce costs, and improve quality. We
advocate reform that builds on the current employer-based system that
currently serves 170 million Americans. Learn more about our views on health
care legislation now working its way through Congress by visiting our website
at www.ibx.com/about_ibc/health_care_reform.

Independence Blue Cross is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue
Shield Association.

SOURCE Independence Blue Cross

Karen Burnham of Independence Blue Cross, +1-215-435-2171,
Karen.burnham@ibx.com