Thursday, January 22, 2004

Nation's Health Plans Now Judged on Quality Standards for Treatment of Alcoholism
Press release from Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems (George Washington University), reprinted at Join Together - "A tool that 90% of the nation's health plans already use to assess their performance in treating asthma, diabetes, and high blood pressure now includes new measures for how well plans do in treating patients who have been diagnosed with alcoholism and other drug disorders. According to a report released today by Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems, holding plans accountable for timely and effective alcohol treatment should lead to improved service delivery and more informed health care contract negotiations. The new primer, Using Performance Measurement to Improve the Quality of Addiction Treatment, focuses on the inclusion of leading addiction treatment indicators in a popular performance measurement tool called the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) as part of a broader explanation of how both the private and public sectors are using performance measurement to demand greater accountability from health care providers. " See also the primer Using Performance Measurement to Improve the Quality of Addiction Treatment.