News Brief: Nursing home info available to the public
Consumers in six states now have access to comparative quality data about nursing homes. It is part of a pilot project that will be rolled out nationally by October.
For now, consumers in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Washington state will have information on data including: use of restraints, bedsores, infections, pain management, and use of anti-psychotic medications.
PRO-West, a Seattle-based nonprofit health care quality improvement organization, will collect the data, which also will include information on pneumonia, respiratory infection, septicemia, urinary tract infection, viral hepatitis, wound infection, fever, and recurrent lung aspiration.
Currently, only 20 states publish nursing home quality data. The new data will be available on the Medicare web site at www.medicare.gov.
AHRQ’s releases 1998, 1999 hospital statistics
The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released 1998 and 1999 hospital inpatient data for the country, regions, and selected states this month. For the first time, it also includes statistics from the Kids’ Inpatient Database — the only hospital administrative data set specifically designed for analyzing the use of hospital services by newborns, children, and adolescents. HCUPnet enables users to identify, track, analyze, and compare statistics on the inpatient care of Americans.
Since its launch two years ago, the tool has provided answers to thousands of questions about hospital care, including the leading reasons for admission, the most expensive surgical procedures, the proportion of stays for diabetes that are covered by Medicaid, the proportion of children’s stays that are not covered by insurance, and the trend in the number of coronary artery bypass grafts over the past several years.
AHRQ also announced three further upgrades to HCUPnet. These are:
- Instant Tables — commonly requested statistics users can obtain instantly without having to go through HCUPnet’s query system.
- The National Bill — quick access to aggregate charges for diagnoses and procedures, telling users the total national bill for specific diagnoses and procedures.
- The ability to specify ranges of ICD-9-CM codes instead of having to request each ICD-9-CM code individually.
The National estimates used in HCUPnet are based on data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS).
The 1998 and 1999 NIS data are available on CD-ROM with accompanying documentation for $160 each from the National Technical Information Service at (800) 553-6847 or (703) 605-6000. The 1998 NIS product number is PB2001-500092, and the 1999 NIS product number is PB2002-500020.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content