New Jersey 2004 Hospital Performance Report

On July 1, the Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner Clifton R. Lacy, M.D., released the state's first annual report on hospital performance, giving hospitals, health care providers, patients and their families information on treatment of heart attack and pneumonia in New Jersey acute care hospitals. The report encourages quality improvements by the hospitals and enhances availability of consumer information on health care.

New Jersey's report is based on the performance of New Jersey's 82 hospitals in treating heart attack and pneumonia patients over a nine-month period in 2003. The analysis uses care measures developed by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO). The hospital scores are based on the percent of eligible patients who receive these treatments.

The interactive online version of the performance report - available at www.nj.gov/health/hpr - enables the user to view individual hospital profiles, compare the performance of various hospitals, or make comparisons by county and region. The on-line version also provides a technical explanation of the measures and methodology. To obtain a copy of the report, access the website or contact the Department's Office of Health Care Quality Assessment, Division of Health Care Quality and Oversight, New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services by mail at P.O. Box 360, Trenton, NJ 08625-0360, by phone at (800) 418-1397, or by fax at (609) 530-7478.

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"The Best News About Radiation Therapy: How to Cope and Survive" is a book recently written by Carol Kornmehl, MD, FACRO and published by Academic Radiation Oncology Press, 2003. In the book, Dr. Kornmehl explains everything that patients and their families need to know about radiation therapy. She has succeeded in translating a complex and daunting area of medicine into plain English, with a comforting and encouraging approach that readers will find informative and easy to handle.

It is important to let our colleagues know about the exciting and important work that is going on in New Jersey that will improve the care of our patients. We would like to hear about any papers or presentations that our Members are involved in, so that we might share this information with the entire Society.

To submit any noteworthy work that you may be involved in, send to:

Email:	membership@oncsocnj.org
Regular Mail:	Linda Bartolo, Executive Director The Oncology Society of New Jersey 26 Eastmans Road Parsippany, New Jersey   07054