In this year’s evaluation, CMS considered the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on hospitals, excluding data for the first half of 2020 and Medicare patients readmitted with pneumonia, according to a report in Kaiser Health News.
Nationally, Medicare is penalizing 2,273 hospitals, the fewest since 2014, with an average payment reduction of 0.43%, Kaiser reported.
Hartford Health Care Photo.
CMS fined William Backus Hospital 1.42%.
In Connecticut, 69% of all hospitals in the program face fines, but most are under 1%.
Six hospitals saw significant drops in penalties, including Rockville Hospital, from 2.3% last year to 0.45% this year, and Bridgeport Hospital, from 2.15% to 0.7%.
The others are Bristol Hospital, from 1.34% to 0.28%; Manchester Memorial Hospital, from 1.8% to 0.74%; Middlesex Hospital, from 1.67% to 0.97%; and Waterbury Hospital, from 1.13% to 0.51%.
William Backus Hospital received the highest penalty this year among facilities in the state, at 1.42%, which is slightly lower than last year’s 1.56%.
“We are encouraged that many hospitals in our state showed improvement from last year or sustained past gains,” Alison Vail, RN, vice president of quality and patient safety, Connecticut Hospital Association, said in an email. “Through the Connecticut Hospital Association, hospitals are working collaboratively and transparently to improve the quality of care delivered at hospitals and to focus on patient care needs outside the hospital walls.
“This ongoing collaboration is having a positive effect on patient care,” Vail said. “These efforts to support patients through programs that address social and health care needs will improve patients’ quality of life and minimize the need for hospital readmissions. Hospitals and health systems are committed to continuous quality improvement and will continue working together to achieve even better outcomes for patients.”
Lisa Freeman
Lisa Freeman, executive director of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, said, “It is important to move the focus from the monetary consequence of readmissions to the causal reason for them. While I commend our hospitals for much of the good work that was done, COVID or not, readmissions can and should be greatly reduced with well-coordinated hospital care, discharge planning, and aftercare.
“COVID provided a stress test for our health care system, and that provided a window through which the weaknesses that showed up should be identified and addressed,” Freeman said. “As much as hospitals don’t want to be penalized, for many reasons, patients don’t want to be readmitted either. Effective communication among all members of the patient care team, including the patient and home caregiver, coupled with consideration of discharge readiness and medication reconciliation as well as the other related factors must always be addressed—COVID or not.
The hospitals losing less than 1% reimbursement are Charlotte Hungerford, .38%; Danbury, .23%; Day Kimball, .77%; Greenwich, .24%; Hartford, 0.71%; John Dempsey, .58%; Johnson Memorial, .27%; and Lawrence + Memorial, .18%.
Also losing less than 1% reimbursement are MidState Medical, 0.62%; Norwalk, 0.09%; St. Mary’s, 0.6%; Sharon, 0.11%; St. Francis, 0.33%; St. Vincent’s, 0.54%; Stamford, 0.04%; Hospital of Central Connecticut, 0.08%; Windham Memorial, 0.15%; and Yale New Haven, 0.41%.
Griffin Hospital in Derby, Masonicare Health Center in Wallingford, Hebrew Home and Hospital Inc. in West Hartford and Connecticut Hospice Inc., Branford, were not penalized.
Connecticut hospitals exempt from the program include Connecticut Children’s in Hartford, Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield, Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, Southwest Connecticut Mental Health in Bridgeport, Silver Hill Hospital Inc. in New Canaan and Albert J. Solnit Children’s Center in Middletown.
This is the 11th year for CMS penalties, enacted under the Affordable Care Act. The maximum penalty is 3%. The penalties take effect as of Oct. 1.
]]>In Connecticut and nationally, complying with federal infection-control requirements is a challenge for some nursing homes.
Between 2017 and 2019, 145 of Connecticut’s 217 nursing homes – or about 67 percent – were cited for infection-control violations, according to a Conn. Health I-Team analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). (View list of nursing homes cited below).
The 145 facilities had a total of 225 violations. Most of the violations were one-time occurrences, but 62 facilities had between two and four violations, the data based on the CMS nursing home compare website show.
Three nursing homes each had four violations between 2017 and 2019: Autumn Lake Healthcare at New Britain, RegalCare at New Haven, and RegalCare at Southport. Officials at those facilities didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Nationally, 9,372 nursing homes, or 61%, were cited for one or more infection-control violations, according to a report by Kaiser Health News. Kaiser’s analysis found that violations since the beginning of 2017 were more common at homes with fewer nurses and aides than at facilities with higher staffing levels.
Infection prevention violations included staff failing to wash their hands or change their gloves in between caring for residents, or properly cleaning equipment after each use, such as glucometers, which measure blood sugar levels.
iStock Photo.
Seniors have a high risk of contracting COVID-19.
Health inspectors typically examine infection-control procedures during routine inspections of nursing homes but, amid this outbreak, CMS suspended routine, non-emergency inspections last week and ordered inspectors to step up oversight of infection-control compliance.
“I’ve looked at thousands of violations [nationwide] and the problems are almost always related to staffing, especially infection control,” said Richard Mollot, policy researcher and executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition in New York City, which compiles infection control violations at nursinghome411.org. “The staff just did not have time; they were rushed so they didn’t wash their hands.”
Two of the Connecticut facilities with four violations, RegalCare of New Haven and Autumn Lake Healthcare at New Britain, have staff level ratings at “much below average,” the lowest rating on Nursing Home Compare. RegalCare of Southport is considered a “special focus facility,” subject to more frequent inspections.
Given the elderly population they serve, nursing homes continuously strive to prevent and control the spread of infections, like influenza or COVID-19, according to Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities. Nursing homes are taking precautions amid the COVID-19 outbreak and following guidance from the state Department of Public Health (DPH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he said.
“[COVID-19] could cause a lot of harm for nursing home residents, who are vulnerable to a much higher degree than the broader population,” he said. “The consequences are so severe, it’s reasonable and appropriate that the sector prepares for the worst, and hopefully it doesn’t come to that.”
This week, DPH ordered that all nursing homes prohibit most visitors from facilities and on Friday, DPH updated its order to restrict all visitors, except first responder emergency personnel.
“There are a lot of protocols, guidance and practices regarding infection control in skilled nursing facilities,” Barrett said, referring to CDC guidelines. “Skilled nursing facilities, even if there is some unevenness in regulatory citations across the sector, are equipped and trained and skilled at dealing with the detection and prevention of respiratory illnesses like influenza – and COVID-19 is the same in almost every respect, in terms of the guidance.”
Even before the DPH mandate came earlier this week, Barrett said that many facilities were screening or otherwise limiting visitors.
Seniors have a high risk of contracting coronavirus, according to Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.
“Starting at age 60 there is an increasing risk of disease and the risk increases with age,” she said. “The highest risk of serious illness and death is in people older than 80.” The COVID-19 estimated death rate for people 80 years of age and older is 21%, according to the World Health Organization.
In Washington state, 19 elderly residents with ties to the Life Care Center in Kirkland have died from coronavirus and several other nursing homes have residents or employees who have tested positive, the Seattle Times reported this week.
This story was updated from an earlier version.
In Connecticut, 145 nursing homes – or about 67 percent – had one or more violations of infection-control regulations from 2017-2019, a C-HIT analysis of federal data found. All the violations were corrected. (Scroll left and right to view the entire chart.)
Codes for violations: A, B, C, Level 1; D, E, F, Level 2; G, H, I, Level 3; and J, K, L, Level 4, immediate jeopardy, most serious
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
The state Department of Public Health has set up a webpage with information.
Cara Rosner can be reached at caramrosner@gmail.com.
Susan Jaffe prepared the infection control violation analysis and can be contacted at Jaffe.KHN@gmail.com.
]]>
Statewide, 26 of the 29 hospitals evaluated – 90 percent – will have their reimbursements reduced, by varying amounts, in the 2020 fiscal year that began Oct. 1, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of data from CMS.
CMS began in the 2013 fiscal year to penalize hospitals that have high rates of patients who are readmitted within one month of being discharged. The penalties were enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act, intended to encourage better health care delivery. Nationwide, 2,583 hospitals will be penalized this year, according to Kaiser Health News.
CMS penalized Bridgeport Hospital 2.66 percent, the highest penalty among CT hospitals.
To help reduce the rate of readmissions, the Connecticut Hospital Association will be working with hospitals to partner with community-based organizations to address social determinants of health including housing, transportation, food insecurity and access to medical providers, said Mary Cooper, chief quality officer and senior vice president for clinical affairs at CHA.
“It’s not just about what happens at the hospital,” said Cooper.
In Connecticut, no hospital received the maximum penalty of a 3 percent reduction in reimbursements, but several will see payments reduced by more than 2 percent.
They are: Bridgeport Hospital with a 2.66 percent penalty, Waterbury Hospital at 2.44 percent, Manchester Memorial Hospital at 2.38 percent; and Bristol Hospital at 2.23 percent. Each of those hospitals were penalized in the 2019 fiscal year as well and, in each case, this year’s penalty is greater.
Medicare levied a 0.78 percent penalty on Yale New Haven Hospital and a 0.50 percent penalty on Hartford Hospital. Both penalties were lower than the previous year, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center’s penalty was slightly higher at 0.39 percent.
Sharon Hospital has the lowest penalty, at 0.02 percent, followed by William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich and Windham Community Memorial Hospital & Hatch Hospital, which each will be penalized 0.03 percent.
Three hospitals in the state weren’t penalized at all: Stamford Hospital, Hebrew Home and Hospital Inc. in West Hartford, and Masonicare Health Center in Wallingford. Stamford Hospital and Hebrew Home and Hospital had no penalties last year as well.
Waterbury Rep-Am Photo.
Waterbury Hospital’s penalty is 2.44 percent.
Some hospitals are making strides in reducing readmissions, but doing so is a complex challenge, said Lisa Freeman, executive director of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety. And more needs to be done, she added.
“Readmissions are a huge problem but, at the same time, it’s not a problem that falls solely on one entity’s shoulders,” said Freeman. “It’s a shared burden. The solution is a hard one.”
In launching the new hospital-community partnerships, Cooper said all Connecticut hospitals have committed to a new technology-based program that will make it easier for them to refer patients to community-based resources upon discharge, and then receive reports back from those resources about how patients fared, she said.
The program will begin rolling out – not merely within hospitals, but within communities – in three areas of the state this fall, and is expected to be implemented statewide by 2021, Cooper said.
Hospitals have an obligation to the communities they serve and should learn as much as they can about patients’ living conditions and social determinants if they aim to reduce readmissions long-term, Freeman said.
“I don’t think it’s fair to necessarily pick on particular hospitals,” she added. “We really, really have to all work together. [In some cases] we’re not going to get patients out of that cycle [of readmissions] unless we get them out of their environment.”
CMS’ reimbursement penalties alone aren’t significantly reducing the number of readmissions, Cooper noted, but a more community-based approach could.
“Given the number of hospitals that are penalized across the country, and given the lack of movement in the metrics of readmission, we have to look for other strategies,” she said, noting all hospitals want to reduce readmissions. “It’s on everybody’s radar. Everybody is working on it across the board.”
Register-Citizen Photo.
Sharon Hospital received the lowest penalty at 0.02 percent.
“The good thing of this whole program is that it’s caused folks in the industry to look at this whole issue differently. It’s caused them to be a little creative – for the most part, in good ways,” Freeman said. “I think the shift is occurring very, very slowly. We have to start looking at this as a human problem, not a dollar and cents problem, and not a numbers problem.”
Medicare exempts some hospitals from the penalty program, including children’s hospitals, psychiatric hospitals and veterans’ hospitals. Nationwide, 2,142 hospitals were exempt this year.
In Connecticut, exempted hospitals are: Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield, Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, Southwest Connecticut Mental Health in Bridgeport, Silver Hill Hospital Inc. in New Canaan, the Connecticut Hospice Inc. in Branford, and Albert J. Solnit Children’s Center in Middletown.
View the hospital penalties provided by Kaiser Health News here.
]]>Thirty-nine nursing homes (19%) earned a one- or two-star rating for staffing levels.
Nursing Home Compare’s five-star system (5 being “much above average,” 4 “above average,” 3 “average,” 2 “below average” and 1 “much below average’) examines quality of care delivered, staffing and overall performance, among other factors. It gives consumers the ability to compare quality among facilities. CMS updated the rankings in April, following the release of new payroll data that gives insights into nursing home staffing trends. The site rated 217 facilities in Connecticut and thousands more nationwide.
After a series of complaints about the quality of residents’ care nationally, CMS announced in 2018 measures to increase nursing home oversight and provide transparency on staffing. In compiling its staff ratings, CMS considered facilities’ staffing hours for registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), and nurse aides. The information compiled is from the fourth quarter of 2018, from the most recent payroll data available.
Check out our database of the 2019 nursing home inspection reports here.
Lisa Freeman, executive director of the Connecticut Center for Patent Safety, said staffing levels are a top priority among family members of nursing home residents. “It’s always an issue that’s brought up,” she said. In some cases, facilities simply are short-staffed; in others, staff may not be used the most efficiently, she said.
Putting more attention on staffing levels will help spur improvements, Freeman said.
Nationally, 1,638 nursing homes received one-star ratings for staffing, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis. Some facilities were downgraded because their payroll records showed no registered nurse hours for four days or more, while others failed to provide payroll information. Medicare had previously penalized nursing homes with seven or more days without an RN.
Among the Connecticut nursing homes given a five-star rating for staffing are: Avon Health Center; Edgehill Health Center, Stamford; Filosa for Nursing and Rehabilitation, Danbury; Grimes Center, New Haven; Jerome Home, New Britain; and Jewish Senior Services, Bridgeport.
The facilities with the one-star rating for staffing include: Advanced Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, New Haven; Bridgeport Health Care Center; Bishop Wicke Health and Rehabilitation Center, Shelton; and Village Green of Bristol Rehab and Health Center.
Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, said Nursing Home Compare is a valuable tool for families and nursing home residents, but shouldn’t be the only thing consumers look at when choosing or evaluating a facility.
The latest ratings were released after CMS “abruptly” changed the methodology by which it rates facilities, which could confuse some people, said Barrett, whose organization represents 150 nursing facilities.
“The government has made changes to how it rates skilled nursing care centers across the nation that will result in some Connecticut skilled nursing facilities receiving a lower [overall] rating” he said. “Although the rating has changed, the quality of care being provided in these Connecticut skilled nursing homes hasn’t. Specifically, the government has updated the Five-Star Quality Rating System in a way that makes it harder for all nursing centers to earn stars.”
C-HIT.org Photo.
The Grimes Center, New Haven, received five-star ratings for staffing and overall performance.
In Connecticut, 64 facilities (29%) received a five-star, overall rating from CMS. They include, Autumn Lake Healthcare at Norwalk; Avery Heights, Hartford; Branford Hills Health Care Center; Grimes Center, New Haven; Saint Mary Home, West Hartford; Valerie Manor, Torrington; and Guilford House.
The lowest overall rating, one-star, was given to 29 facilities (13%), including Advanced Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, New Haven; Apple Rehab Avon; Apple Rehab Saybrook; Arden House, Hamden; Bridgeport Health Care Center; Cassena Care at Norwalk; Hewitt Health & Rehab Center, Shelton; RegalCare at Greenwich; and RegalCare at New Haven.
Overall ratings encompass not only staffing, but also health inspections and quality of care.
Barrett said several former five-star homes have lost one or more stars under the new system.
“That is concerning,” he said. “The latest star ratings cannot be compared to ratings prior to April because the goal posts have been moved and are just different.”
Still, Barrett acknowledged some nursing homes struggle with staffing.
The Conn. Health I-Team reported last November that staffing levels challenged the quality of care at some facilities. Between 2015 and 2018, the state Department of Public Health cited and fined nursing homes for a total of 247 violations. In 25 of those cases, citations noted that two staff members were required to help or move a resident and only one was used. Of those cases, 17 incidents occurred in 2017 and 2018, and most resulted in a resident being injured.
Though it doesn’t change staffing requirements, a bill approved by the state legislature requires nursing homes to calculate and post daily staffing information.
Separately, the state budget requires the Department of Social Services to increase Medicaid reimbursements to nursing homes by 4% by January 2021. The budget calls for a 2% increase starting July 1, another 1% increase starting Oct. 1, 2020, and another 1% increase by Jan. 1, 2021. That money is earmarked for employee wages and benefits, Barrett said.
One looming challenge on the horizon for facilities, Barrett said, is the state’s rising minimum wage, which could make it harder for nursing homes to recruit and retain workers. Once minimum wage increases to $15 an hour, he said, service sector jobs will pay close to what nursing homes pay—and nursing-home work often is more difficult, both physically and emotionally.
]]>The hospitals are among 800 nationwide being penalized – the highest number since the federal Hospital Acquired Conditions Reduction Program started five years ago, according to a Kaiser Health News (KHN) analysis of the CMS data. The penalties will be levied during the current fiscal year, which began in October 2018 and runs through September.
Under the program, which was created by the Affordable Care Act, the government levies penalties based on hospitals’ rates of infection related to colon surgeries, hysterectomies, urinary tract catheters and central lines inserted into veins. It also reviews infection rates for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and Clostridium difficile, known as C. diff, as well as rates of blood clots, sepsis, post-surgery wounds, bedsores and hip fractures, among other injuries.
Photo by CT Post
Bridgeport Hospital has been penalized in all five years of the program.
The Connecticut hospitals losing 1 percent of their reimbursements are: Bridgeport Hospital, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, The Connecticut Hospice Inc. in Branford, Greenwich Hospital, Griffin Hospital in Derby, Hartford Hospital, The Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, UConn John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington, Masonicare Health Center in Wallingford, MidState Medical Center in Meriden, Rockville General Hospital, St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, Stamford Hospital, Waterbury Hospital, and Windham Community Memorial Hospital & Hatch Hospital in Willimantic.
A growing number of Connecticut hospitals, through enacting “high reliability” standards, are making improvements to reduce preventable infections and conditions, said Mary Cooper, chief quality officer and senior vice president for clinical affairs at the Connecticut Hospital Association. The high reliability initiative, which is being embraced by hospitals throughout the state, is intended to reduce instances of preventable patient harm.
Increasingly, hospital staff are looking at ways to reduce infections and conditions and, when they do occur, staff are discussing why they happened and what can be done to prevent them in the future, Cooper said.
“Everybody is working on this. Nobody wants infections, nobody wants complications,” she said. “The work is paying off in many of our hospitals. I am hopeful that this is the beginning of the trend that we’ve been waiting for, with all this work that people have been putting in.”
Fifteen hospitals received penalties under the program last year as well.
This was the first year Griffin Hospital and St. Vincent’s were penalized under the program. Five hospitals have been penalized in all five years of the program: Bridgeport Hospital, The Connecticut Hospice Inc., Hartford Hospital, UConn John Dempsey Hospital and Windham Community Memorial Hospital & Hatch Hospital.
It’s unclear how much the penalties will cost each hospital, since the dollar amounts are tied to the Medicare claims each will submit to the government through the end of the fiscal year.
Hospital leaders and staff seem to be making a more concerted effort to improve – but as long as facility-acquired conditions persist, more needs to be done, said Lisa Freeman, executive director of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety.
UConn John Dempsey Hospital has been penalized by Medicare since the program began.
“It’s a concern,” Freeman said. “The good news is the hospitals are finally aware that they have to work hard to bring these rates down. They’re not sure if they’re going to reach zero, but they’re really trying to get as close as possible to zero. The effort has become more genuine and more realistic.”
“I am pleased with some of the results that we’re seeing. That being said, it’s always that relative performance,” Cooper said. “If other hospitals around the country improve faster [than Connecticut ones], you’ll see us back on the penalty list.”
Both Cooper and Freeman were pleased to see two of the state’s largest hospitals, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center and Yale New Haven Hospital, were not penalized under the program this year.
Their strategies should be looked at by smaller hospitals, Freeman said, for insights about how to improve.
To reduce hospital-acquired conditions, Connecticut hospitals need to bolster communication and ensure that standards of care are in place and being followed, Freeman said.
“We still have work to do, but the numbers that are getting better show that they can improve,” she said.
Hospitals can face other fines as well. CMS announced in October that 27 of Connecticut’s 29 hospitals are being penalized this fiscal year with Medicare reimbursement reductions – of varying amounts – for having high rates of patients who were readmitted within a month of being discharged.
]]>The penalties against 28 hospitals mean Connecticut has one of the highest percentages nationally – more than 90 percent — of hospitals facing Medicare reductions. Only the Hebrew Home and Hospital of West Hartford escaped penalties; the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center is exempted from the federal program.
iStock Photo.
Seven hospitals face Medicare reductions of more than 1 percent.
None of the state’s hospitals faces the maximum 3 percent reduction to Medicare reimbursement, but seven face reductions of more than 1 percent. They are: Milford Hospital (1.70 percent); Middlesex, in Middletown (1.38); Johnson Memorial, in Stafford Springs (1.27); Charlotte Hungerford, in Torrington (1.19); St. Vincent’s, in Bridgeport (1.09); Manchester Memorial (1.04); and Yale-New Haven (1.03).
This is the fourth year that the federal Medicare program has been tracking the rates at which patients discharged from hospitals after treatment for certain conditions, including heart failure and pneumonia, are readmitted within 30 days. Hospitals that exceed Medicare’s standards lose a percentage of their Medicare funding.
Nationally, the majority of hospitals – more than 2,500– are being penalized, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News. About 800 will not face penalties, while 514 will face a loss of 1 percent or more. Thirty-eight hospitals will face the maximum 3 percent penalty.
All of the Connecticut hospitals that will lose Medicare money in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 also were penalized this year. In the first year of the program, only 21 state hospitals were penalized, but that number has crept up in subsequent years.
Hospital administrators say they have made myriad efforts to reduce readmissions in the past four years. They note that Medicare counts patients who return to the hospital within 30 days for any reason, even if it was unrelated to the original stay. Also, some hospitals argue that the federal government does not take into account the socio-economic conditions of their patient populations, saying those factors affect the likelihood of readmissions but are beyond their control.
The Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA) has been working with member hospitals and Medicare quality-improvement groups to address problems leading to high readmissions, such as infections, inappropriate antibiotics use, and lack of follow-up care after hospitalization. The CHA also has “ramped up” data reporting on readmissions among hospitals, said Dr. Mary Cooper, vice president and chief quality officer for the association.
Noting that the new penalties are based on readmissions only through June 2014, Cooper said some of the recent improvements would pay off in future rates.
“We do know we have made progress in the last three years” by sharing best practices and improving communication with patients after discharge, she said. “More than any other preventable harm, (readmissions) is a problem that we will not be able to solve by ourselves.” Collaboration with nursing homes, primary care physicians and other providers is key to avoiding re-hospitalizations, she said.
THOCC.org Photo
The Hospital of Central Connecticut will face a lower penalty on Oct. 1.
Cooper said one area that Connecticut needs to tackle is the lack of palliative care for patients with late-stage diseases, who cycle in and out of hospitals instead of hospice or community-based care. “We need to address end-of-life care more proactively,” she said.
The new data show that a number of hospitals – including the Hospital of Central Connecticut, Midstate Medical in Meriden, St. Francis in Hartford, and St. Vincent’s — will face lower penalties in the new fiscal year than in 2014-15.
The average penalty for Connecticut hospitals in the new fiscal year is 0.66 percent – slightly higher than the national average of 0.61 percent. Some hospitals will face only small reductions, including Saint Mary’s in Waterbury (0.05 percent); Lawrence & Memorial in New London (0.11 percent); John Dempsey in Farmington (0.17); and Stamford (0.15).
Cooper said, “Any loss hurts, from any source,” in the current financial environment.
Nationally, about 20 percent of all hospitalized Medicare patients are back within 30 days, at an estimated cost of $17 billion a year, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
To view all the Medicare penalties in Connecticut and nationally click here.
But state Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, said he still wants to work with DPH and state hospitals to make the infection rate information more easily accessible.
DPH recently launched a website application, developed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, that provides information on quality and utilization measures, including hospital-acquired infections, for each Connecticut hospital.
“I think it’s a very good start, and I appreciate (DPH Commissioner) Dr. Jewell Mullen recognizing that the data should be made available,” Hwang said. “But I still think we need to find ways to make that information more easily available,” possibly through disclosures on individual hospitals’ websites, he said.
“Let’s step up the transparency, so that consumers can make the best possible informed decisions.”
Hospital-acquired infections, caused by viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens, have become a major focus of concern by the federal government, which has begun withholding Medicare reimbursements to hospitals with the worst rates. Fourteen Connecticut hospitals are facing a 1-percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements this year.
A November story by C-HIT reported that more than 50 percent of the state’s hospitals had rates for at least one type of hospital-acquired infection that were worse than federal benchmarks, in late 2012 and 2013. No other state had a higher percentage of its hospitals exceeding the infection standards set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and most states had fewer than 20 percent, according to the data, compiled by Kaiser Health News.
Officials of the Connecticut Hospital Association have been working with national groups and Qualidigm, the state’s Medicare quality-improvement consultant, to train hospital employees in reducing preventable harm and instituting safety protocols. They note that state hospitals saw a 30-percent reduction in central line-associated bloodstream infections between 2008 and 2012, and said there are collaborative efforts underway to eliminate other infections.
C-HIT has launched a new searchable database where consumers can look up infection rates for every state hospital.
Hwang said he hopes that increased transparency will prompt hospitals to accelerate their efforts to combat infections by creating “market-driven” competition that “encourages culture change.”
“All I really care about,” Hwang said, “is that any patient who goes into a hospital gets the best possible care and protection against infection.”
]]>