Jan Peter Ozga

Health plan sponsors have a valuable role to play in preventing avoidable deaths from medical mistakes, says Joe Kiani, president of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation.

Employers can take immediate steps to help hospitals ensure that employees, dependents — and all patients — are in better shape after they leave the hospital than when they went in.

Plan sponsors can take immediate steps to help hospitals ensure that employees, dependents -- and all patients –are in better shape after they leave the hospital than when they went in.

Commentary: Even the best hospitals are not immune to medical mistakes. However, there are steps employers can take to educate themselves about its costs.

Is the U.S. health care system overrated and overpriced?

Employers looking for good news on patient safety got a mixed bag of recent news – especially the discouraging report that nearly half of American hospitals fall short in nursing standards.

Lawmakers are pushing through several pieces of legislation that encourage better health information technology, especially interoperability, which will help reduce medical errors.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services had reported a drop in hospital medical mistakes, and many point to better use of health information technology - a trend employers may also take advantage of.

Despite the efforts of patient safety and advocacy groups, hundreds of Americans die each day because of preventable hospital errors, accidents and injuries. Addressing and improving that safety for sick workers should be a top priority.

Employer action on the patient safety issue could include crafting health benefit plans that reward safety and penalize non-compliance, urging hospital boards to make safety a priority and distributing patient safety literature.

An ancient idea is becoming a contemporary cure for the high cost of health care in the United States and barriers to access elsewhere: medical tourism, also known as, global health care, whereby patients seek health services overseas.

Population health management addresses societal factors that contribute to employee decisions.

Using health care analytics — sometimes called business intelligence — researchers and consultants are mining clinical and claims data to discover gold standards and establish best practices for prevention, treatment and self care and, ideally, help reduce waste, abuse and fraud. The goals are simple but have remained elusive.