Medicare Releases More Hospital Performance Results      

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Medicare has been working to start making sure that hospitals deliver better results for their patients.  They have been studying the numbers of readmissions, deaths and other outcomes in over 4,000 hospitals throughout the country.  The studies are a precursor to rewarding hospitals for good performance by possibly offering bonuses versus paying hospitals at a lower rate if they need to improve their performance and outcomes.

The Medicare information released focuses on the number and percentage of patient deaths during or after a hospital stay or readmission.  This monitoring is good news for patients because it has “encouraged” hospitals to improve services. 

Some of the improvement measures that hospitals have reported using for better outcomes have been better monitoring, more careful use of catheters and other instruments that can create and spread infections, such as staph infections which can be fatal, better information to patients when they are about to be released, and better follow-up including phone calls to patients once they have gone home. 

The hospitals that saw improvement in outcomes reported using many of these measures.  The hospitals that did not fare quite as well agree that there is room for improvement, but they – and others – cite some inaccurate figures and results.  For instance, in one hospital that had a high number of deaths from pneumonia, 60% of the patients in that group were over 80 years old, very frail and had other medical issues and complications.

In another group of patients at one particular hospital two-thirds of them actually died in nursing homes, and most of them contracted the pneumonia after they left the hospital.  Another hospital reports that over 90% of the group of patients that died of pneumonia had a “Do Not Resuscitate” order which does not give an accurate picture of the hospital’s role in their death.

The results of this study are important to be aware of, and the fact that the study was done indicates that Medicare is looking at ways to help patients be safe and receive the best quality care possible.  Even while the kinks are being worked out, care is improving for patients.

Entry Filed under: General-Medicare