Consumer education effort underway. (Short Takes: News at Deadline).

The Minnesota Council of Health Plans has launched a statewide, multi-year initiative to give consumers better tools to understand and evaluate managed care. The program, called EQUIP (which stands for ethics, quality, information, and prevention), has two goals: to educate Minnesotans on the challenges facing their health care system and engage them in making decisions on how the system can be improved.

Over the next year, EQUIP will involve consumers, employers, and policy makers in determining the community's values and expectations for health care ethics and decision-making. By early next year, the program will publish a report on how the quality of health care currently is measured and what the data shows about Minnesota's plans. EQUIP also will make quality standards more useful to individuals and employers as they evaluate health plans, Other efforts will involve improving consumer information and strengthening prevention efforts.

Michael Scandrett, the Council's Executive Director, says," Minnesota's health plans have done a great job of using managed care to improve quality and expand prevention, while keeping health care affordable. However, we haven't done as good a job of explaining how managed care works. Consequently surveys show that people like their own health plan, but have concerns about the future. "The Council hopes to correct the criticism that is based on misinformation and misunderstanding so that legitimate concerns can receive the attention they deserve.

James A. Hawkins is Publisher of Healthcare Briefings, a newsletter available in print, on cassette, via fax, and on computer disk. He can be reached at 800/338-5486.