New CMS Initiatives
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For nurses practicing in hospitals you might be interested in the following:
CMS – Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
NEW MEASURES FOR REPORTING FOR FY 2011 UPDATE
“CMS is adding 4 new measures for the FY 2011 program, and retiring one existing measure. For some of these new measures, the hospitals will not have to affirmatively report data to CMS. Instead, CMS will calculate the measures using Medicare claims data. The total number of measures that are included in the FY 2011 payment update is 46.
The inclusion of these additional measures will encourage hospitals to take steps to make care safer for patients. Heart failure, pneumonia, and heart attack - three conditions that are included in the 46 measures for FY 2011 - rank among the ten most common diagnoses for Medicare inpatient care, and therefore have the greatest impacts on costs to the Medicare program. The processes of care represented by quality measures for these three conditions are known to improve the quality of care patients receive during inpatient visits to the hospital.
In addition, the measures for the FY 2011 payment determination will include a measure to track re-admissions for heart failure.”
To view the article in it’s entirety, please click on the link below: