HEALTH

Watchdog Group Targets HMO Performance: The nation’s most prominent HMO watchdog group unveiled an aggressive new set of performance standards, hoping to rate how health plans treat cancer, heart disease, AIDS and other major afflictions. The program, by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, will also provide the first objective surveys of what consumers think of their HMOs, replacing those sponsored by the health plans. And it will poll elderly people on whether they are healthier or sicker than they were two years earlier as part of an effort to identify which HMOs are best at dealing with medical problems of those over 65. The program’s authors said it could one day be incorporated into a detailed, objective consumer report card on each of the nearly 600 health maintenance organizations in the country. HMO executives were supportive of the standards and agreed with the panel’s decision to put off the more ambitious ones.