Profession
JCAHO backs off plan to sell patient-level data
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 19, 2005
The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations will not sell patient-level performance data acquired from hospitals during accreditation work to third parties, such as insurers, the group announced last month.
A JCAHO subsidiary's contract to sell such data to several BlueCross BlueShield plans outraged the American Hospital Assn. and other hospital groups earlier this year. An AHA spokesman said they welcomed the policy change. In a statement, JCAHO said it would continue mining data gathered during the accreditation process "to measure and encourage quality improvement."
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/12/19/prbf1219.htm.