The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration will post data on potentially preventable hospital readmissions on its consumer-oriented Web site FloridaHealthFinder.gov, in an effort to assist officials to identify and prevent avoidable hospitalizations, reports Modern Healthcare. The statewide figures will allow hospitals for the first time to track patients who may be discharged from one hospital and quickly readmitted to another.

Fierce HealthCare reports: California hospitals have made their first official disclosures of never events occurring in their facilities. The disclosures, which cover the period between July 2007 and May 2008, address 28 never events specified in the legislation (state law enacted in 2006).

The Michigan Health & Hospital Association joins a growing list of hospital associations, states and payers who have adopted policies to stop billing patients for certain serious preventable errors ("never events") and hospital-acquired conditions. This follows on from Medicare's decision to cease payment from 2008, for specific hospital medical errors.

Rhode Island lawmakers have approved patient-safety legislation that would create a database for voluntary reporting of medical errors by healthcare providers and insurance companies, to compliment existing reporting requirements. The legislation would also establish a 14-member care-advisory committee to review the database findings and create quality-improvement strategies.

Giorgi Lomsadze reports on Georgia’s healthcare system.

Georgia has launched the "100 Hospital Bill", where Private companies, such as pharmaceutical firms, are taking over public hospitals –aiming to improve quality services of facilities.

Read More on Giorgi Lomsadze’s Article: GEORGIA SAYS FAREWELL TO PUBLIC HEALTHCARE

Ron Winslow on the WSJ Health Blog posts insight on a recent JAHA study of preventable deaths resulting from cardiac bypass surgery. The study finds that 32% of CABG mortalities were preventable.

An interesting note from the article is that "Typical report cards do not provide the necessary detail to direct surgeons where to focus their quality improvement efforts."

Of perhaps even more interest is some follow-up Ron got from one of the co-authors:

Modern Healthcare: The Joint Commission has developed seven new inpatient psychiatric measures. These measures will eventually be used on the Quality Check web site- which allows consumers to compare hospitals.

New Hospital-Based Inpatient Psychiatric Service Measures:
(Beginning October 1st)

• Admission screening for violence risk
• Substance use
• Psychological-trauma history and patient strengths completed

Medicaid to Cease Reimbursement to Hospitals for 'Never Events' and Avoidable Errors

Beginning in October, the New York State Medicaid program will deny reimbursements on 14 “never-events”- avoidable hospital complications and medical errors. These “never events” include surgical errors such as procedures performed on the wrong body part or the wrong patient.

AHA News: Consumer Reports launched a Web site that lets consumers compare how intensely hospitals treat patients with certain serious chronic conditions. Data is derived from the Dartmouth Atlas Project.

The tool does not provide information on the quality of hospital care. They currently offer assessments on health insurance plans, drugs, and some medical treatments.

Fierce Healthcare: CIGNA has launched a national web site ranking doctors and hospitals by cost and quality measures. The web site also provides its beneficiaries with additional tools to help them obtain care.

The CIGNA web site names hospitals in specific regions with the lowest death and complication rates. It offers a list of questions patients can ask their doctor in regards to a specific condition. They have also developed a patients tools section to help viewers locate nearby pharmacies with the lowest prices.

More on Press Release:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has launched a campaign to raise awareness of its Hospital Compare Web site. This advertising campaign is running nationwide in 58 daily newspapers, featuring local hospital performance metrics and data.

Source: HHS Promotes Hospital Compare

The National Quality Forum announced the release of 48 voluntary consensus standards that measure the performance of acute care hospitals, including measures addressing pediatric safety, hospital readmission, and prevention and care of venous thromboembolism.

MEASURES ENDORSED BY THE NATIONAL QUALITY FORUM:

• Length of Stay/Readmission
  Risk-adjusted average length of inpatient hospital stay
• Overall inpatient hospital average length of stay (ALOS) and ALOS by DRG service category

Bill Offers More Transparency for Patients and Tougher Discipline for Physicians: Governor David A. Paterson announced that he has proposed legislation that will dramatically improve patient safety, enhance the state’s authority in medical investigation and help to prevent future infection control violations.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC): announced that hospital-acquired infections at their 11 hospitals have dropped dramatically since 2005 as part of a larger patient safety program to reduce preventable deaths and unnecessary hospital stays.

The new statistics are available on the HHC website, http://www.nyc.gov/hhc, and is part of the public hospital system's effort to voluntarily share information on hospital quality and safety with the public.

More on Press Release:

Ga. to arm consumers with health care data: IBM has been contracted by the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) to develop a comparative data Web site, which is scheduled for completion this fall. The site will enable all health care consumers in Georgia to compare performance and costs for hospitals and physicians.