Regional Roll-Out (RRO) Leader/Lead Organization Information

Name: New York Business Group on Health   
Link: www.nybgh.org 
Description: Founded in 1982, the New York Business Group on Health (NYBGH) is a not-for-profit coalition of 150 businesses and is the only organization in the New York Metropolitan area exclusively devoted to employer health benefit issues. NYBGH functions as the forum for businesses to explore contemporary healthcare issues and find practical resolutions. Members include employers and health-related organizations.
The mission of NYBGH is to provide leadership and knowledge to employers to promote a value-based, market-driven healthcare system.

Contact: Marilyn Wolff Diamond, MPH
Title: Director, Quality Initiatives 
Address: 61 Broadway, Suite 2705 New York, NY 10006
Phone: 212-252-7440 x 222
Fax: 212-252-7448
Email: mdiamond@nybgh.org 

Contact: Laurel Pickering, MPH
Title: Executive Director
Address: 61 Broadway, Suite 2705 New York, NY 10006
Phone: 212-252-7440 x 224
Fax: 212-252-7448
Email: laurel@nybgh.org 

Why did your organization decide to apply to become a Leapfrog Regional Roll-Out leader?

New York Business Group on Health supports the employers’ quest for value in the purchase of health benefits and services.  Leapfrog is a vehicle to involve the New York metropolitan area employers, health plans and hospitals in a national movement to promote patient safety and standardized national metrics.

In your view, what kind of impact Leapfrog has had on your market thus far?

Leapfrog has helped to coalesce various stakeholders around the issue of patient safety. Although Leapfrog participation in the roll-out region remains low, awareness about patient safety issues has increased.

Regional Roll-Out Market Information

Geographic coverage: New York City, Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Dutchess, Greene, Albany, Nassau and Suffolk counties, and western Connecticut

Population: Over 11,835,000 in New York state counties plus approximately 2 million in Connecticut counties

Employer characteristics:

Number of employer/coalition lives in RRO area: Over 1 million.

List of New York City's largest employers: http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/images/random/05Employers.pdf

Hospital characteristics:

143 hospitals in roll-out region

Insurer characteristics:

Local health plans:
• Aetna
• Anthem
• Cigna
• Connecticare
• CDHP
• Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield
• GHI
• Health Net
• HIP Health Plans
• Horizon Healthcare
• MVP
• Oxford Health Plans
• United Healthcare

State/Local government activities:

In 2005 legislation was passed which requires hospitals to release to the New York State Department of Health statistics on hospital acquired infections. New York State Department of Health publishes the Adult Cardiac Surgery Report for 2001-2003 which provides information on risk factors and outcomes for isolated cardiac artery bypass surgery, valve surgery and the two procedures performed in combination. In 2003, New York's hospitals performed 14,692 adult cardiac artery bypass surgeries. This 2003 figure is a significant improvement over the 3.52 percent mortality rate recorded in 1989, when the Department first began reporting CABG surgical outcomes.