Erin McCann, Associate Editor
Erin McCann is Associate Editor at Healthcare IT News. She covers physician practices, ambulatory care and social media in healthcare. Follow Erin on Twitter @EMcCannHITN
CMS to create new records system
Will facilitate quality measure reporting
WASHINGTON | February 6, 2013The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will develop a new records system that will facilitate quality reporting for long term hospital care, according to Wednesday's Federal Register.
Specific quality metrics quantifying the care quality provided to patients staying in long term care hospitals will be compiled and eventually published on the Internet.
[See also: CMS posts quality measures for 2014 MU.]
According to the notice, the first measure collected is the "The Percent of Patient Residents with Pressure Ulcers That are New or Worsened." Metrics surrounding catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central line-associated blood stream infections will also be collected. Starting in fiscal year 2014, all three measures will be compiled by CMS. "The quality measure data is required to be valid, meaningful, and feasible to collect, and to address symptom management, patient preferences and avoidable adverse events," the notice reads.
[See also: ONC, CMS make Stage 2 revisions.]
The records system will collect data from long term care patients and Medicare beneficiaries, including personally identifiable information, which includes national provider identifiers, demographic data and Social Security numbers in specific cases.
