Washington Post reports that CMS has issued a new rule requiring hospice providers participating in Medicare to implement a quality assessment and improvement system. The rule, set to take effect in December, mandates that hospices allow patients to help decide on treatment plans and demonstrate improvement in areas where they are found deficient.

AHA News: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is developing a national electronic system to monitor the safety of drugs and other medical products on the market.

The release of a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services final rule makes it possible to use Medicare Part D prescription drug claims data for the system, which the Food and Drug Administration expects to pilot in about a month.

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

US News and World Report: Hospitals Compare on Patient Satisfaction

According to the article, roughly two thirds of all hospitals submit their data and only about 100 opted to suppress it. Hiding the information will not be permitted for future submissions. Hospitals that opt out will find their Medicare reimbursements for inpatient care cut by 2 percent starting July 2008.

iHealthBeat: The federal government's Hospital Compare Web site will expand to include patient opinions based on satisfaction surveys conducted at nearly all hospitals, from later this month.

Medicare is analyzing the results from the first year of its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative and gearing up to modify the program for 2008, reports Modern Healthcare.

The Department of Health and Human Services published today a proposed rule to implement certain aspects of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (Patient Safety Act), that would allow for the creation of patient safety organizations.

iHealthBeat: Last week, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt called for a "Travelocity for health care," a system that would give physicians a quality grade and detail how much they charge for services.

Commonwealth Fund: Participants in Medicare's Physician Group Practice (PGP) Demonstration, launched in 2005, are charged with improving the coordination of care for their fee-for-service beneficiaries, investing in administrative and process improvements to increase efficiency, and improving the quality of patient care. Practices earn performance payments based on their success in meeting these goals.

Fierce Healthcare: In 2006, nearly 1,500 patients died due to medical errors in Pennsylvania, according to a newspaper analysis of hospital billing records. Such deaths are an estimate of what the state would not be paying for if its new "no pay for preventable errors" Medicaid policy had been in place since then--and what the state is likely to uncover when it stops paying for such errors in the future.

The Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CMS) are expanding their quality measure reporting programs to include the public reporting of information on patients’ experiences during care and pneumonia mortality. Hospitals also will be asked to collect data on quality measures for outpatient and pediatric care. Beginning in 2008, the number of measures hospitals are to report expands to 27 measures.

New inpatient measures for public reporting in 2008 include:

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.

AHA News reports that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last week sent Congress its plan for implementing a value-based purchasing program for hospitals under the Medicare inpatient prospective payment system beginning in fiscal year 2009, as required by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

HHS is currently involved in a fight over the public release of the largest health care database in the U.S, reports iHealthBeat. As blogged recently (HHS appeals ruling requiring disclosure of Medicare physician claims data) the U.S.