CMS Expands Hospital Compare to Include HAC Data

CMS announced the expansion of their publically reported data to include “Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC). MSPs play an important role in patient safety and compliance with these measures as we assist our hospitals by providing education to our medical staffs during orientation and ongoing education opportunities.

For the first time, Medicare patients can see how often hospitals report serious conditions that develop during an inpatient hospital stay and possibly harm patients with important new data about the safety of care available in America’s hospitals added today to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Compare website.

The Hospital Compare website can be accessed at www.HealthCare.gov/compare.

Independent data from the Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 98,000 people die in hospitals each year from medical errors that could have been prevented through proper care. Although not every HAC represents a medical error, the HAC rates provide important clues about the state of patient safety in America’s hospitals. In particular, HACs show how often the following potentially life-threatening events take place:

· Blood infections from a catheter placed in the hospital;
· Urinary tract infections from a catheter placed in the hospital;
· Falls, burns, electric shock, broken bones, and other injuries during a hospital stay;
· Blood transfusions with incompatible blood;
· Pressure ulcers (also known as bed sores) that develop after a patient enters the hospital;
· Injuries and complications from air or gas bubbles entering a blood vessel;
· Objects left in patients after surgery (such as sponges or surgical instruments);
· Poor control of blood sugar for patients with diabetes.

Today, there is so much information to communicate to our medical staffs. To accommodate our busy doctors have you come up with any innovative ways to provide education using new methods of technology that you would like to share with fellow MSPs?


Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services