Industry round-up: Orthocrat, UnitedHealthcare
Orthocrat, a developer of digital templating and pre-operative software solutions for orthopedic surgeons, netted another United Kingdom with its fifteenth hospital group installation in the country. HCA (Hospital Corporation of America Group–London) will install the company’s TraumaCad software across its facilities which include: Wellington Hospital, Portland Hospital, Princess Grace Hospital, London Bridge Hospital, Harley Street Clinic, and Lister Hospital–Chelsea Bridge.
UnitedHealthcare announced its support for the “Door to Balloon (D2B): An Alliance for Quality” campaign recently initiated by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and supported by 22 partnering organizations including the American Heart Association (AHA). The campaign aims to improve door to balloon time, which is the interval between a patient’s arrival at the hospital and the opening of a blocked artery with an angioplasty balloon. Patients who receive prompt treatment are more likely to survive a common type of heart attack. The organization had incorporated door to balloon time as one of the quality measurements in its UnitedHealth Premium designation program for cardiac facilities nationwide. In support of this new initiative by the ACC, UnitedHealth is increasing the weight of measurement assigned to the door to balloon performance standard. As a result, a facility that lowers door to balloon time will receive a higher quality score. Under the UnitedHealth Premium program, facilities seeking designation status must submit clinical outcomes data, resulting in increased access to unparalleled datasets on performance against cardiac care criteria established by recognized experts that cardiac facilities, physicians and patients can use to make informed choices. “We believe that providing hospitals, physicians and health care professionals with evidence-based information they can use to analyze clinical performance is one of the most important ways to improve clinical quality,” said Reed Tuckson, M.D., executive vice president and chief of medical affairs for UnitedHealth Group.
UnitedHealthcare announced its support for the “Door to Balloon (D2B): An Alliance for Quality” campaign recently initiated by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and supported by 22 partnering organizations including the American Heart Association (AHA). The campaign aims to improve door to balloon time, which is the interval between a patient’s arrival at the hospital and the opening of a blocked artery with an angioplasty balloon. Patients who receive prompt treatment are more likely to survive a common type of heart attack. The organization had incorporated door to balloon time as one of the quality measurements in its UnitedHealth Premium designation program for cardiac facilities nationwide. In support of this new initiative by the ACC, UnitedHealth is increasing the weight of measurement assigned to the door to balloon performance standard. As a result, a facility that lowers door to balloon time will receive a higher quality score. Under the UnitedHealth Premium program, facilities seeking designation status must submit clinical outcomes data, resulting in increased access to unparalleled datasets on performance against cardiac care criteria established by recognized experts that cardiac facilities, physicians and patients can use to make informed choices. “We believe that providing hospitals, physicians and health care professionals with evidence-based information they can use to analyze clinical performance is one of the most important ways to improve clinical quality,” said Reed Tuckson, M.D., executive vice president and chief of medical affairs for UnitedHealth Group.