Public to get inside scoop on quality of providers
Information to be posted on CMS web site
Before long, the public will gain access to information on the quality of health care that previously was available only to those on the inside. The federal government will begin publishing data this summer.
Launched by the American Hospital Association (AHA), the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH), and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the plan is voluntary, but health care quality leaders are encouraging hospitals to participate. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will collect and post data on how hospitals treat patients with acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. Rather than focusing on survival rates, the reports will indicate how well hospitals comply with 10 performance measures for the three conditions. For instance, the reports will indicate whether hospitals consistently treat patients with aspirin after heart attacks, and whether pneumonia patients receive antibiotics in a timely fashion.
The information will be posted on the web site of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Hospitals already collect the data and report it to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and they must give permission for the information to be reported publicly. A 1986 effort was met with considerable resistance, but many organizations are urging hospitals to participate in the new effort.
Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF), endorses the effort. In October 2002, the NQF board of directors endorsed 31 hospital care performance measures, and a second group of measures currently is under consideration by NQF, he says. The endorsed measures constitute the first-ever set of national voluntary consensus standards for hospital care quality.
The consensus standards in the first group of measures cover six care areas: cardiac-related (acute coronary syndrome and heart failure), pneumonia, pregnancy/childbirth/neonatal-related, pediatric-related, surgical complications, and smoking cessation. The second group of proposed measures will expand the measures in these six areas and also cover hospital-acquired infections, Kizer says. "The NQF is strongly committed to making health care performance information available to the public. This initiative is a good first step toward making standardized and comparable performance information available to patients, patients’ families, and other stakeholders."
[For more information, contact:
• Kenneth W. Kizer, President, National Quality Forum, 601 13th St. N.W., Suite 500 North, Washing-ton, DC 20005. Telephone: (202) 783-1300.]
Before long, the public will gain access to information on the quality of health care that previously was available only to those on the inside. The federal government will begin publishing data this summer.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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