A provider’s perspective on hospital-acquired conditions

Medicare's new policy to not pay for hospital-acquired conditions and errors is generating a great deal of posts in the blogosphere. The Physician Executive blog had a post on Aug. 19 that describes a provider’s perspective on the issue. Blog author Zagreus Ammon, MD, makes some interesting points:

"While I understand the value of increasing medical accountability, there must still be recognition that all outcomes, including hospital-acquired infections, have multifactoral causation. . . . What if the infection was acquired outside the hospital, but became evident in-hospital?

"The other appalling aspect of this rule is that it does not respect the single most important principle of quality data: NEVER use your data punitively. Despite every temptation to do so, the risk is that you provide an incentive for people to fiddle with or otherwise manipulate their data."

Find Dr. Ammon’s “Medical Errors and Medicare” post, along with comments from readers, here.