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.

Rosa Baier updates us:

Rhode Island's Department of Health currently reports clinical quality measures and patient satisfaction for nursing homes, home health agencies, and hospitals. The 2007 satisfaction reports for nursing homes and home health agencies have both been updated within the past 2 months:

Home health:
http://www.health.ri.gov/chic/performance/homehealth/index.php#satisfaction
http://www.health.ri.gov/media/080529a.php

The Sun Herald carries this press release from the American Health Care Association that softly agrees with Medicare's latest plan to beef up the Nursing Home Compare site, but with additional cautions; of interest is the Association's desire that CMS include patient satisfaction measures.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: (CMS) will soon launch a ranking system of America’s nursing homes using a “star” rating.

The ratings will be available on the agency’s Nursing Home Compare Web site by the end of the year.

iHealthBeat:The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently added nursing home compare data to their Web site. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is a searchable database with the names of nursing homes that rank in the lowest 5% to 10% in quality based on state inspection results.

ihealthbeat:
Oklahoma Develops Web Site Rankings of State Nursing Homes: Oklahoma's Governor Brad Henry, unveiled a new state Web site that rate the quality of care of the state's nursing facilities and ranks the facilities from one to five stars.

The site provides ratings on 10 measures-some include:

• Quality of life;
• Resident/family satisfaction;
• Nursing turnover and retention;
• State survey compliance;

The latest quality data update to the New York State Nursing Homes Profile Web site (nursinghomes.nyhealth.gov) was published today.

CMS quality data was updated on the Web site for 19 measures as follows:

• October 1, 2006 through March 31, 2007
  • Percent of Long-Stay Residents Given Influenza Vaccination During the Flu Season
  • Percent of Short-Stay Residents Given Influenza Vaccination During the Flu Season
• April 1, 2007 through September 30, 2007
  

Mark Alexander writes: "We recently published a major update of the FloridaHealthFinder.gov website, which provides a wealth of transparency information on Florida hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers."

StarTribune.com reports that fifty-four nursing homes are being told by the government that they're among the worst in their states in an effort to goad them into improving patient care. Lawmakers and advocacy groups have been pushing the Bush administration to make it easier for consumers to identify poorly performing nursing homes. They complain that too many facilities get cited for serious deficiencies but don't make adequate improvement, or do so only temporarily.

The New York State Department of Health has updated its Web site to include important information on nursing home quality – including the results of state inspections.

People using the site, nursinghomes.nyhealth.gov, will be able to see specific deficiencies for which a nursing home has been cited, including their severity and the number of residents affected. Users of the site can also download and print the inspection reports.

150 hospitals, nursing homes and home care agencies achieved a 70% reduction in the incidence of pressure ulcers, according to a study conducted by the New Jersey Hospital Association.

Working to reduce the occurrence of pressure ulcers in patients throughout various care settings, members of the New Jersey Hospital Association’s Pressure Ulcer Collaborative reported a 70 percent reduction in the incidence of new pressure ulcers after nearly two years of applying shared best practices and preventive techniques.

iHealthBeat reports that Pennsylvania lawmakers recently approved legislation that will require hospitals and nursing homes in the state to report patient infections to state authorities.

The measure, part of the governor's "Prescription for Pennsylvania" health care agenda, aims to reduce insurance premiums by cutting the number of infections patients contract through increased monitoring.

eHealth SmartBrief reports on Consumer health information Web sites on the Internet, with many going into the business of rating and comparing providers. The CMS' "hospital compare" site allows consumers to find out which hospitals offer certain practices and the hospitals' compliance with quality standards. And new health site allows you to compare surgeons' rates of complications, look up death rates for the procedure at each local hospital, and even read patients' comments about their care.

Read full news item:

Illinois Dept of Public Health has updated their quarterly nursing home inspections/complaints violations report at their Web site

Newsday.com reports: "A new Web site ranks nursing homes in New York state on measures including whether residents were depressed, physically restrained or spent most of their time in bed.

The updated Nursing Home Profile, found at www.nyhealth.gov, also lets users access inspection reports and a home's history of complaints.

Other measures include the percentage of residents who were given flu vaccines and whose need for help with daily activities has gone up. The 19 quality measures were not previously listed on the site.