Federal Employee Health Benefits

Health Net of Arizona, Inc.
Patient Safety Initiatives

Health Net is committed to ongoing collaboration with network practitioners, facilities and external accrediting agencies to build a safer health system. Current member/patient safety initiatives include:

• Quality of care concerns (QI Referrals) are investigated, reviewed, and action take where applicable. Analysis of overall and individual trends is conducted.
• Credentialing and recredentialing process is rigorous to ensure only qualified practitioners and organizations provide care in the network.
• Credentialing conducts site audits for practitioner credentialing per established criteria.
• Clinical Practice Guidelines are distributed to the physician network; Health Net evaluates clinical practices against aspects of these Guidelines for safe clinical practice.
• Complaints and member satisfaction surveys that relate to member safety are analyzed, taking action when applicable.
• Disease management programs provide follow-up monitoring of the member's treatment plan for compliance and timeliness.
• Care coordination provided for high-risk members.
• Utilization Management conducts activities to ensure continuity and coordination of care.
• Pharmacy mails/faxes information to physicians on new medications and member-specific issues to enhance patient safety; conducts studies, mails materials to members as applicable.
• Information provided to members and practitioners on safe health practices.

Health Net publishes on its website the Hospital Comparison Report,which compares hospitals for a particular procedure; the site also provides a link to Leapfrog for further safety information.