Health Information Management

HAC data goes public: Is your hospital ready?

HIM Connection, May 31, 2011

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If you haven't already heard, HAC data is now publicly available on CMS' website, and as of April 21, it also became available on the Hospital Compare website.

And here's something else that you should know if you don't already—hospitals can't suppress their results. The publicly reported HAC data pertains to all IPPS hospitals participating in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program that were open as of February 3, said Marian V. Wrobel. A senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., in Cambridge, MA, Wrobel explained how HAC data will be available to hospitals and the public during a recent CMS Special Open Door Forum.
 
Providing safe healthcare is a top priority for CMS and it will remain a focus for the agency. "The establishment of public reporting of the HACs on Hospital Compare will undoubtedly promote continued improvements in the delivery of quality healthcare," John Cooper, MD, CMS chief medical officer, said during the call.
 
Consumers currently won't be able to use Hospital Compare features to specifically assess hospitals according to HAC measures, but they will be able to download hospital-specific reports.
 
Editor’s note: To read more, access this article in the May issue of Briefings on Coding Compliance Strategies.



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