If hospitals see more revenue from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) next year, they may owe a thank-you to the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) – and their own infection prevention pros.
SHEA is urging infection control professionals to get up to speed on new CMS requirements for reporting central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs). Starting in 2011, CLABSIs and certain other healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) will have to be reported on the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) for hospitals participating in the CMS Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program. Participation in the programs is voluntary but here’s the catch: Hospitals can’t get full CMS payment without taking part.
How does the process work? Hospitals report their CLABSI data from their adult and pediatric intensive care units and neonatal intensive care units to NHSN, which then shares it with CMS.
Each facility’s data will be also be uploaded to CMS’s Hospital Compare tool, which is designed to publicly report hospital performance so it can be usefully compared.
The focus on CLABSI data will benefit patients will also live in the value of industry’s contributions to preventing infections. Included in the latter, among companies with which we work, are Excelsior Medical and RyMed.
The partnership between CMS and NHSN is intended to create greater transparency of HAI data, make hospitals more accountable for quality care, and boost facility’s support for infection prevention programs and professionals. Read more about NHSN here: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/cms-welcome.html/ .
