Virginia Health Information (VHI), a nonprofit health information company, is publishing new HMO cost
and quality reports at www.vhi.org.

Virginia HMOs performed better than the national averages for 70% of the quality measures. Statewide, HMOs also improved overall rates from last year in over 50% of all measures.

HMO members reported higher levels of satisfaction in five of seven measures such as:

• Members said they were more able to get the care they needed and get it quickly

News item from KaiserNetwork: HHS on Oct. 19 filed notice to appeal an August court decision that requires the department to release Medicare physician claims data, Consumers CHECKBOOK/Center for the Study of Services announced on Monday.

The following is a summary of legislation by state regarding the disclosure by hospitals of their hospital infection rates.

Arkansas

HealthDecisions.org tracks 7 states movement towards improving health care quality and transparency thorugh legislation or executive order and their advance towards the promise of a value-driven health care system for more Americans. This report focuses on initiatives undertaken by Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Nevada, Arkansas, Utah and Oklahoma.

An online tool recently launched by Virginia Health Information group (a not-for-profit group) enables users to compare cardiac care at hospitals in the state of Virginia.

This Web site shows how often hospitals provide cardiac care and provides the percentage of heart attack patients who die at individual hospitals, as well as the percentage of heart attack patients who are hospitalized again within 30 days. This VHI report groups cardiac care into three Cardiac Care Service Lines. These groups include medical care for heart disease and heart surgery.

AHA News reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has opened to all U.S. hospitals its Web-based network for tracking healthcare-associated infections. It said the National Healthcare Safety Network has been improved to meet the needs of states with mandatory reporting of HAIs, and that eight states (California, Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia) plan to use the network in implementing mandatory reporting. CDC said the secured network allows hospitals to analyze the data and share it within a facility or with the general public if desired.

In June 2006, Aetna began providing consumers with online access to the rates it negotiates with physicians in several U.S. cities. In August 2006, Aetna posted new information that allows its members in some areas to access price data for the top 30 physician services, as well as physician performance data.

An reported today (03/30) in United Press International, Aetna will now provide Web access to its members to cost and quality data on individual doctors in five new cities. Physician data is available in all or parts of 16 states and the District of Columbia, giving one in five of the company's 36 million beneficiaries price information on their local doctors.