USA: failure to provide needed health care

[Guest guest]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Routine failure to provide needed health care resulted

in up to 79,000 avoidable deaths and $1.8 billion in additional medical costs

last year, according to a new report from an organization that works to

improve health care quality.

While care given by the nation's managed care organizations generally was

better in 2003, there were wild variations in the practice of medicine

across a range of conditions that included high blood pressure, diabetes

care, breast cancer screening and flu shots for adults, the private National

Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) said in its annual report released

Wednesday.

Among the suggestions for enhancing care were tying pay to performance

and making doctors and hospitals more accountable by requiring them to

report measures of their performance. Last year's Medicare prescription drug

law took a tentative step in this direction by linking a small portion of

Medicare payments to hospitals' willingness to submit quality data.

The NCQA report includes information submitted by managed care plans that

include about a quarter of the U.S. population. " The data we have tell a

great story, health care quality is improving consistently and

dramatically, " said Margaret E. O'Kane, the group's president. " But why

don't we have performance data for the other 75 percent of the U.S. health

care system? "

One notable exception to the upward trend in quality was treatment of mental

illness, which showed no improvement over 2002.

" Overall, patients get the correct care only about 50 percent of the time, "

the report said.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of Massachusetts was the top-rated health plan

for both clinical care and member satisfaction, the report said.

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For more information:

National Committee for Quality Assurance: http://www.ncqa.org