Campus Life

Medical Center named Blue Distinction Center for bariatric surgery

Capital BlueCross, in partnership with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, named Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center a Blue Distinction Center for Bariatric Surgery for demonstrating reliability in delivering bariatric surgical care and better overall outcomes for patients. To date, only five facilities in the region have been named to the list of designated hospitals.

Blue Distinction Centers for Bariatric Surgery have well-integrated programs that help promote patient safety and provide cross-functional team support to bariatric surgery patients. The Blue Distinction program has two goals: to engage consumers to enable more-informed, health-care decisions and to collaborate with providers to improve quality outcomes and affordability.

Selection criteria evaluate volume, structure, process and outcome measures. An ongoing certification process is in place to ensure that participating institutions continue to meet quality criteria, making them more likely to deliver better overall outcomes and better value for Blue Plans' members and employers.

The comprehensive surgical weight-loss program at Penn State Hershey Medical Center was started in 1979 and offers a multidisciplinary approach, including nutritional counseling, medical evaluation, psychiatric evaluation and weight-loss surgery for patients with clinically severe obesity. For more information about the Penn State Surgical Weight Loss Program, visit http://www.pennstatesurgicalweightloss.com online.

Last Updated March 19, 2009

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