UCLA Medical Center announced it has completed successfully its participation with Lumetra, California's Quality Improvement Organization for Medicare, to improve the quality of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries.

The center is one of 60 California hospitals that have worked with Lumetra on implementing quality improvement efforts in their facility by participating in Lumetra's hospital collaboratives to improve quality of care for patients with heart failure and to prevent surgical infection. Collaboratives are intensive, year-long programs that offer participants training and expert assistance and share clinical best practices.

UCLA Medical Center also is participating in a collaborative with other academic medical centers in the United States to improve quality of care for patients with pneumonia.

"UCLA's participation in these efforts has improved our performance in bringing standardized quality care that results in improved medical outcomes for our patients in these critical areas," said Dr. Lee Hilborne, director of the UCLA Center for Patient Safety.

Lumetra forges partnerships with California hospitals to improve quality of care delivered to California's 4.1 million Medicare beneficiaries. Its hospital quality-improvement programs support the national Hospital Quality Initiative, launched in 2002 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to improve the care provided by the nation's hospitals, and provide the public with access to information about the quality of care being delivered in U.S. hospitals.

The national initiative builds on the illness and/or clinical conditions identified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that significantly affect Medicare beneficiaries. Quality improvement efforts promote the best medical practices associated with targeted clinical disorders, and seek to prevent or reduce further instances of these selected conditions and related complications.

UCLA Medical Center is a nonprofit, self-supporting 668-bed hospital providing patient care in all medical specialties. It is the primary teaching hospital for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The hospital's Emergency Medicine Center is a designated level 1 trauma center. For information about clinical programs or help in choosing a personal physician, call (800) UCLA-MD1 or visit www.healthcare.ucla.edu.