Article details new quality measures

An article in the December 2007 issue of hfm magazine provides a thorough overview of IPPS changes. Of particular interest is the article’s detailed description of changes to CMS's hospital quality reporting initiative.

The article, "Surviving Medicare’s IPPS changes: what you need to know," is written by S-DRG Report contributor Dean Farley, vice president of the Lewin Group (an Ingenix company), and Renee Leary, director of Vineyard Point Associates, and the former COO of HSS, an Ingenix company.

In FY07, hospitals were required to report on a set of 27 quality measures. Hospitals not reporting CMS-established quality measures will have their inpatient operating rates reduced by 2 percent. CMS is adding one new quality measure for FY09 payment rate determination: pneumonia 30-day mortality for Medicare patients. Calculating this rate uses Medicare claims data from July 2006 to June 2007.

Two new process measures were added by CMS in November 2007:

• Surgical care improvement project (SCIP) Infection 4: Cardiac surgery patients with controlled 6AM postoperative serum glucose
• SCIP Infection 6: Surgery patient with appropriate hair removal

Data on the two SCIP measures are due Aug. 15, 2008.

CMS also is considering two new process measures – although both are pending approval from the National Quality Forum – which include:

• SCIP Infection 7, Colorectal patients with immediate postoperative normothermia
• SCIP Cardiovascular 2, Surgery patients on a beta-blocker prior to arrival who received a beta-blocker during the perioperative period

Access an archive of the article here (HFMA membership required to access the article for free).