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A goal of ADVANTAGE Health Solutions, Inc. sm is to continually strive to improve the outcomes of the health and quality of care and services delivered to our members. In 2000, ADVANTAGE received our two-year approval from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and in 2001, we were accredited by The National Committee of Quality Assurance (NCQA) as a new health plan. In 2000, ADVANTAGE implemented our strategic patient safety program. A patient safety officer was put in place and key initiatives began. This included sharing information and working with key stakeholders to help them better understand the importance and strategy behind improving patient safety and reducing medical errors. In addition, we began to assess the readiness of our network hospitals in regards to Leapfrog and other patient safety initiatives.

To date, the roll out of our patient safety program includes:

• Appointing the Vice President of Medical Affairs as the safety officer.
• Incorporating patient safety monitors into ADVANTAGE's quality improvement plan.
• Patient Safety Educator involved in ADVANTAGE annual Provider education program.
• Incorporated patient safety education in all member welcome packets and formulary documents.
• Linked ADVANTAGE's web site to Leapfrog's web site for providers and employers
• Added a patient safety node for members, providers and employers to ADVANTAGE's web site.
• Involvement in Michigan Health and Safety coalition.
• Mailings of educational materials to providers of care.
• Completed appropriate use of antibiotic campaign.

Activities for Consumers to be aware of:

• Health Plan's assessment of network providers (i.e. hospital) safety initiatives and sharing with other hospital delivery systems.
• Assessing rates and reasons for ADVANTAGE members' readmission.
• Enhancements of the health plan's drug interaction program.
• Ongoing patient safety education in all member and provider newsletters related to:
• Developing and communicating targeted education materials such as:

Appropriate Medication usage; Safety related to generic medication; Risk for drug poisoning; Summer safety tips; Talking to your physician; Appropriate antibiotic usage; Preventing errors in your care;

Goals of expected outcomes:

• Decrease the number of hospital admission and emergency room visits related to drug interaction or overdose.
• Decrease avoidable readmission rates
• Increase network hospitals participation in Leapfrog.

Tools used to track progress includes:

• Claims data in order to track reason for hospital admissions, readmission and emergency room visits.
• Pharmacy drug interaction reports.
• Leapfrog's reporting on hospital participation.

ADVANTAGE's commitment to patient safety has been incorporated into our Quality Improvement Program since its inception. These initiatives involve continuing our evaluation of network providers, monitoring the potential risk for drug interactions and educating our members and providers. In addition, since medication related errors are the number one problem affecting patient safety, we have continued to enhance our pharmacy reporting capabilities. Drug interaction and polypharmacy reports have become a major component of our medical management oversight process. The outcome of this is direct reporting to providers of potential or adverse drug related issues that have or could have adversely impacted the members. Through our Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) we have implemented PharmaReview. PharmaReview is a "real-time" system that allows ADVANTAGE direct access to members' pharmacy data in addition to reporting capabilities.

Based on the data gathered and our continued efforts, ADVANTAGE Health Solutions will monitor and work with our network providers to create collaborative initiatives to make sure that our members receive quality medical care and services in a safe environment. In addition, we will continue to monitor our internal processes as we look for ways to enhance our methods to assure members' safety.