Hawaii Medical Service Association Announces $50M Health Care Initiative To Improve Patient Care

The Hawaii Medical Service Association will provide $50 million over the next three years to fund programs to improve patient care at hospitals and help physicians acquire electronic health technology, HMSA President and CEO Bob Hiam announced Thursday, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports. About $30 million will fund innovative projects from HMSA's 17 participating acute care hospitals to improve patient care and outcomes. According to HMSA board member Gary Kajiwara, hospitals could propose projects such as establishing isolation rooms, reducing medical errors, acquiring new instruments or equipment, and adopting bar-code methods for administering medicine to patients. Twenty million dollars will be allocated to help about 1,000 of the association's member physicians acquire electronic medical record systems, which Hiam said will improve patient care, reduce errors and duplication, and "provide true efficiencies in the delivery of care." He added, "As we all learned from Hurricane Katrina, EMRs are vital when disasters strike because they provide continued access to medical information for people in active treatment, whether paper files are lost or destroyed or people are relocated." Michael Stollar, HMSA vice president of corporate communications, said the initiative "has the potential to transform health care in the islands" (Altonn, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 10/19).