HHS Launches ‘Partnership for Patients;’ NAPH, Members Sign On - April 12, 2011

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on April 12 launched a new program called, Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs. NAPH and members Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in California and Denver Health in Colorado are among three of the first 56 organizations to sign the Partnership pledge. At the launch event in Washington, DC, speakers included HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, and Denver Health CEO Patricia Gabow, MD, while attendees included NAPH CEO Bruce Siegel, MD, and NAPH member Truman Medical Centers CEO John W. Bluford. Under this new public-private partnership, health care, business and government leaders will come together to make hospital care safer, more reliable and less costly. According to HHS, the partnership will help save 60,000 lives by stopping millions of preventable injuries and complications in patient care across the next three years. Officials said the program also has the potential to save up to $35 billion, including up to $10 billion for Medicare. Across the next 10 years, it also could reduce costs to Medicare by about $50 billion and result in billions more in Medicaid savings. The program’s two overarching goals include keeping patients from getting injured or sicker in the health care system and helping patients heal without complication by improving transitions between health care settings. With as much as $1 billion in new funding provided by the Affordable Care Act, HHS will work with a variety of partners to achieve these goals.