CMS targets easier patient choice of hospital Medicare services
November 24, 2010 | In: Changing Culture
By Mary Mosquera, published on Goverment Health IT
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to boost the effectiveness of Medicare’s fee-for-service program by making it easier for consumers to choose the hospitals they use based on the quality and cost of the services they offer.
To that end, CMS plans to add new patient safety measures to its Hospital Compare Web site (http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) in 2011 that will track hospital-acquired condition and healthcare associated infections.
The new measures were detailed in an announcement in the Nov 19 Federal Register.
The Hospital Compare Web site aims to improve the quality, efficiency and transparency of care in the agency’s Medicare fee-for-service program by publicizing the information about hospitals’ treatment operations, and giving consumers a tool to make decisions about which providers to use based on that data.
The agency will also perform research on displays, labels and explanatory language to make sure that consumers understand the information on the Web site.
CMS also plans to start displaying composite measures that summarize both process and outcome quality measures. Process of care measures report how well a hospital provides care and outcome measures reflect the results of the care that beneficiaries received while in the hospital.
The measures include assessments of heart attack, pneumonia and surgical care.