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.

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

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

The Commonwealth Fund has launched state scorecards on children’s health system performance. Thirteen performance indicators of access, quality, costs, equity, and the potential to lead healthy lives were measured.

The Commonwealth Fund has illustrated an interactive United States map providing state-specific details for consumers.

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

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.

iHealthBeat:
Oregon expands their Hospital Comparison Web Site. Oregon officials have posted online the second year of data on hospital service costs, including cost information for 14 new procedures and conditions, the Portland Business Journal reports.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS): is proposing to add 43 new measures for the FY 2009 reporting period, and to retire one existing measure. However, for some of the new measures, the hospitals will not have to affirmatively report data to CMS. Instead, CMS will calculate them from administrative data. If the proposals are adopted, the total number of measures for reporting for FY 2010 would be 72.

New Measures:

A. Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) Measure (1):

The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) released a study to assess and score of eight prominent government, not-for-profit, and for-profit hospital quality reports. They included New York health care practitioners and quality experts. HANYS reported three out of the eight major hospital quality reports scored better than a “B”.

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.

Health Data Management:The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on April 30 plans to publish in the Federal Register. The proposed rule require hospitals to report more conditions and quality measures to receive their expected Medicare reimbursements.