The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has announced this year's organization and individual winners of the fifth annual Ernest A. Codman Award to recognize excellence in the use of outcomes measurement to achieve health care quality improvement.

The award recipients in the following categories are:

-- Behavioral Health: Alternate Family Care, Sunrise, Florida

-- Home Care: Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, North Carolina

-- Hospital: St. John's Riverside Hospital, Yonkers, New York

-- Network: Cleveland Clinic Health System, Cleveland, Ohio

-- Individual: Norma Lang, R.N., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

Named for the physician regarded in health care as the "father of outcomes measurement," the Ernest A. Codman Award was created to showcase the effective use of performance measurement, thereby enhancing knowledge and encouraging the use of performance measurement to improve the quality of health care. A panel of national experts in quality measurement and improvement selects recipients of the award.

The Joint Commission will formally present the award to the winners on Thursday, Nov. 8, during its National Conference on Quality and Safety in Health Care in Chicago.

"The Joint Commission salutes the winners of the 2001 Codman Award for their superb efforts in enhancing the quality of care for patients," says Dennis S. O'Leary, M.D., president, Joint Commission. "The accomplishments of these award winners underscore the productive innovations that can be achieved by measuring and using outcomes to improve patient care processes."

The specific achievements of the 2001 Codman Award winners are:

-- Alternate Family Care used resolution-focused therapy to help severely emotionally disturbed children work out their traumas, thereby decreasing inappropriate behaviors. This means the children are able to leave Alternate Family Care's residential treatment facility in Hollywood, Florida after briefer stays and still achieve success in a less restrictive treatment environment.

-- Carolinas Medical Center developed a program for early discharge of low birth-weight babies in the neonatal intensive care unit that allows these tiny patients to thrive at home. Infants in the program, which features special classes for parents and four weeks of home visits by a nurse, are being discharged 15 days earlier. Parents report greater satisfaction and there has been no increase in the readmission rate.

-- St. John's Riverside Hospital dramatically improved treatments for students suffering asthma attacks in Yonkers' public and parochial schools. The program's 80 percent reduction in the number of students sent home or to the emergency room prompted the Centers for Disease Control to ask St. John's Riverside to sit on a panel that is developing training manuals to expand their program to all school districts in the country.

-- Cleveland Health Clinic significantly increased the use of ACE inhibitors. ACE inhibitors are drugs proven in studies to slow the progression of heart failure by expanding blood vessels to increase blood flow. The doctor-led initiative, which also includes better education for patients about the benefits of these drugs, increased the use of ACE inhibitors from 61 to 68 percent in only two years.

-- Norma Lang, Ph.D., R.N., is a pioneer in the field of quality assurance in nursing and has led the development of a groundbreaking international scientific system that serves as a common tool to describe and compare nursing practices. This nursing quality model -- known as the Lang Model -- has been adopted in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Dr. Lang is a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and also holds national awards and fellowships with the American Nurses Association, American Academy of Nursing, American Association of Colleges of Nursing and Institute of Medicine. ---

Founded in 1951, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' mission is to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation and related services that support performance improvement in health care organizations.

The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits nearly 18,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, including almost 11,000 hospitals and home care organizations, and more than 7,000 other health care organizations that provide long term care, behavioral health care, laboratory and ambulatory care services.

The Joint Commission also accredits health plans, integrated delivery networks, and other managed care entities. An independent, not-for-profit organization, the Joint Commission is the nation's oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care.