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PA Chamber Vice President of Government and Public Affairs Gene Barr was recently elected chairman of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4). He replaces outgoing Chairman Randall N. DiPalo, who served in that capacity for the past two years.

Nationally recognized for its collecting, analyzing and reporting of public health information, PHC4 is best known for its reporting standards on cardiac surgery outcomes, healthcare-associated infections and overall hospital performance.

“I am proud to accept the role as chairman of an agency that is playing an important role in helping to improve the quality of patient care and lower system costs by providing comprehensive, valuable data about health care in Pennsylvania,” Barr said, noting that the PA Chamber has long had representation on the council and is a strong supporter of its mission. 

PA Chamber Government Affairs Director Sam Denisco also serves on the PHC4 board.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the council’s inception. The business and labor communities worked together to help create the independent state agency, which was established by legislation that was signed into law by former Gov. Richard Thornburgh in 1986. PHC4’s goal was to empower purchasers of health-care benefits with information that would be used to improve quality and restrain costs. Following reauthorization in 2009, the agency’s primary goal is to collect, analyze and make available to the public, data about the cost and quality of health care in the Commonwealth.

The most recently released study is PHC4’s 2010 Annual Report, which summarizes health-care statistics in Pennsylvania over the last five years. Titled “Good Data Drives Good Decisions,” the report concludes that states with an intensive health-care reporting environment, such as in Pennsylvania, have significantly lower odds of in-hospital mortality than hospitals with little to no public reporting systems.

More can be read about the council and its various duties by visiting www.phc4.org.

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The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry is the state’s largest broad-based business association, with thousands of statewide members representing businesses of all sizes and all industry sectors. The PA Chamber is The Statewide Voice of Business™. More information is available on the Chamber’s website at www.pachamber.org.