April 2005
Mission: to transform the health care system through information and technology to improve patient safety and health care quality, lower costs, and coordinate care.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Hospital Quality now reported online
2. AHRQ introduced Patient Safety portal
3. Murphy and Kennedy to introduce IT bill
4. Senate works on Patient Safety bill
5. Kennedy receives Advocacy award
7. Caucus Membership Plaques Available for Delivery
8. Caucus to Host April 28th Briefing on IHI's 100,000 Lives Campaign
9. Certification Commission for Health IT Proposes EHR Requirements
10. Insurer To Promote E-Prescribing Among Docs
11.AARP, Others Promote Bill To Create Drug Price-Comparison Web Site in NY
12. IHI's Promising Practice of the Month: Making Collaborative Improvement a Virtual Reality
Hospital quality information now available online
On April 1, 2005, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled Hospital Compare, a new web site intended to help consumers compare hospitals based on quality. The site, www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, contains information on a set of up to17 important quality measures. CMS estimates that approximately 4200 U.S. hospitals are submitting information to the site. Although reporting is voluntary, the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 provided a financial incentive for hospitals to submit valid data on ten core measures to the site. Hospitals not submitting data will have a 0.4 percent reduction in their annual Medicare fee schedule update.
Data on the site relate to measures of care for three common, serious conditions: heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia. For example, the site reports rates of administration of treatments such as aspirin and beta-blockers for patients with heart attacks, and rates of timely administration of antibiotics for patients with pneumonia. The data will be renewed quarterly. New measures will be added this summer, including measures concerning surgical infection prevention. In the future, CMS also plans to add information about patients' satisfaction with hospital care. CMS offers similar comparative databases on nursing home care, home health care, and dialysis facility treatment. Consumers without web access can get the same information via the telephone by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).
AHRQ introduces Patient Safety portal
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has announced a new web site that will act as a one-stop portal of resources for improving patient safety and preventing medical errors. The Patient Safety Network, or PSNet is intended to help healthcare providers, administrators and consumer learn about patient safety. The site can be located at http://psnet.ahrq.gov. The site includes patient safety findings, literature, tools and conferences.
Murphy and Kennedy to introduce Health IT bill
Caucus co-chairmen Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) have announced plans to introduce a bill to transform the healthcare system through the use of information technology. The bill would charge regional health information organizations with convening health care stakeholders to develop health information networks, mechanism for financing physician IT adoption, and plans to use the network to improve patient safety and efficiency. It would support 20 competitive 3-year grants to regions to develop plans to meet those goals. It would also reportedly make physicians participating in regional networks eligible for increased Medicare reimbursements and would require that federal funds only be used to purchase IT products that are certified as meeting interoperability standards. The Congressmen have predicted that the bill will be ready for introduction by early May.
Senate works on patient safety bill
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored S. 544, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. The CBO has estimated the cost of the bill at $5 million for 2006 and $58 million over the period of 2007 through 2010. The bill would create a new voluntary system for reporting medical errors. The bill, previously introduced in the last Congress by Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT), was reintroduced this year and has been favorably reported out of the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. There has been no similar legislation introduced in the House.
Kennedy receives Advocacy award
One of the chairs of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus was recently awarded the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2005 HIMSS Advocacy Award. HIMSS Board Chair, Pamela Wirth, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, made the announcement during the HIMSS Solutions Showcase, a closing reception and electronic health record (EHR) product demonstration held at the Rayburn House Office Building Foyer in Washington, D.C. as part of the HIMSS Advocacy Day on the Hill.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Kennedy received the HIMSS Advocacy Award due to their strong level of commitment and bipartisan leadership in advancing the best use of information and management systems for the betterment of human health. Kennedy accepted his award at the Advocacy Day ceremony and Gingrich, who had a previous commitment, will receive his award at the HIMSS Summit - Achieving National Healthcare Transformation in New York City on June 6.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released a request for proposal for the 8th Statement of Work for the Quality Improvement Organizations (QIO). QIOs are a nationwide network of contractors dedicated to improving quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries. The quality improvement effort in the 8th Statement of Work will center on reporting, improving, and rewarding quality . The new 3-year contracts will also emphasize the use of electronic health records and electronically transmitted prescribing to improve the coordination of care for patients and will include nursing homes, home health agencies, hospitals and physicians offices.
Caucus Membership Plaques Available for Delivery
HIMSS has prepared membership plaques for all members of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus. If your boss did not receive his or her plaque on April 7th at the Caucus Reception, please contact Blair Hedgepeth at bhedgepeth@himss.org and your personalized plaque will be hand delivered.
Five years ago, the Institute of Medicine published its groundbreaking report, To Err is Human, which detailed the extent of hospital errors. Since then, many innovators have found ways to eliminate some of the most frequent causes of hospital mortality, but many of these practices have not been widely adopted. Now into the fray has stepped the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Under the bold leadership of Don Berwick, IHI has launched the 100,000 Lives Campaign with the audacious goal of saving 100,000 lives by June 2006. To date, the Campaign has signed up over 1,700 hospitals in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to commit to implementation of proven techniques that will save lives.
On April 28, IHI and the Caucus will be hosting a breakfast briefing on the Campaign in room B-369 of the Rayburn House Office Building from 8 to 10 am. All are invited to come learn more about this step forward for health care.
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology made public on April 18 its proposed requirements for electronic health records. The CCHIT is inviting public comment on its proposed requirements through May 18. The CCHIT is working to establish a process for certifying health IT products, beginning with ambulatory EHRs. The proposed requirements would form the backbone of the ambulatory EHR certification process. CCHIT is hosting several teleconferences/webcasts from April 21 through April 27 to discuss the proposed guidelines.
"To meet our initial objective of accelerating the adoption of electronic health record technology in physician offices, we need broad participation in developing certification requirements that will assure these systems are robust and interoperable," said CCHIT Chair Dr. Mark Leavitt (AHA News, 4/18).
From iHealthBeat:
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey on Monday announced that it has partnered with pharmaceutical services company Caremark Rx to promote electronic prescribing among physicians in an effort to lower costs and improve patient safety, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
The program - which is targeting 700 physicians in the Horizon network who write the most prescriptions - aims to increase physician adoption of e-prescribing by providing hardware, software, installation and training at no cost. Cost is the most often cited barrier to physician adoption of e-prescribing, the Star-Ledger reports.
Participating physicians must have high-speed Internet access and be enrolled in a Horizon network, but they can use the e-prescribing technology to write prescriptions for any patient. The program will provide physicians with Caremark's iScribe software, which includes an online prescription renewal tool that allows physicians to electronically review and respond to prescription renewal requests (Newark Star-Ledger, 4/19).
From iHealthBeat:
The AARP and other lobbying groups are pushing for legislation that would create the a Web site to offer comparisons of drug prices among different pharmacies in New York state, AP/Long Island Newsday reports. Under the bill, drug stores throughout New York would report and update prices electronically.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Martin Golden (R), chair of his chamber's committee on aging, and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D), chair of his chamber's Health Committee, would call for pharmacists to transmit prices for 100 widely used drugs. Maine and Maryland have drug comparison Web sites, but no other state lists the drug store prices of the 100 most common drugs, said Richard Cauchi of the National Conference of State Legislatures (Gormley, AP/ Long Island Newsday, 4/18).
IHI's Promising Practice of the Month: Making Collaborative Improvement a Virtual Reality
Since 1995, the IHI Breakthrough Series learning model has enabled more than 1,000 health care organizations to improve health care quality while maintaining or reducing costs. This collaborative learning model brings together people from around the country to share best practices and learn techniques to improve care. Now IHI is experimenting with virtual collaboratives that take advantage of the internet to get the benefits of collaborative learning without the expenses of travel. Read more: http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Topics/Improvement/ImprovementMethods/Literature/MakingCollaborativeImprovementaVirtualReality.htm
The House 21st Century Health Care Caucus thanks the following organizations for their contributions to this newsletter:
HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology and management systems for the betterment of human health. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems' contributions to ensuring quality patient care. On the web at www.himss.org. (Items 2-7)
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a not-for-profit organization leading the improvement of health care throughout the world. Founded in 1991 and based in Boston, MA, IHI is a catalyst for change, cultivating innovative concepts for improving patient care and implementing programs for putting those ideas into action. Thousands of health care providers participate in IHI's groundbreaking work. To find out more, go to www.ihi.org. (Items 1, 12)