What does the Leapfrog Group portend for physicians?

Abstract

N MARKET ECONOMIES, seller survival de­ pends on careful attention to evolving customer values. The Leapfrog Group, announced by the Business Roundtable's Fortune 500 CEO group in 2000 after a 3-year incubation, signals a new ap­ plication to providers of long-standing values of large industrial purchasers. These values warrant attention of physicians beyond the importance of the more than 35 million consumers insured by a growing list of more than 100 Leapfrog Group large employers. Employers sponsor the health insurance plans for a majority of Americans, and large private sector employers influence health care purchasing trends for smaller employers and government health benefit programs such as the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS). Both CMS and the Department of Defense, which sponsor health benefit programs for more than 60 million additional Americans, are Leapfrog affili­ ate members. CMS recently announced that it would link its heavily trafficked Medicare benefi­ ciary website to the Leapfrog Group's website where hospitals are compared on their fulfillment of Leapfrog standards. The Leapfrog Group is initially promoting 3 leaps aimed at improving patient safety in urban hospitals l : (a) computer physician order entry (CPOE); (b) improved ICU physician staffing (IPS); and (c) evidence-based hospital referral for 7 complex, non-emergency treatments based on favorable risk-adjusted outcomes or higher annual volume (EHR). The 7 complex treatments encom­ pass coronary bypass, coronary angioplasty, ca­ rotid endarterectomy, abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs, esophageal cancer surgery, and high-risk