THIRD YEAR OF GROUNDBREAKING MEDICARE VALUE-BASED PURCHASING DEMONSTRATION SHOWS SUBSTANTIAL AND CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT IN HOSPITAL INPATIENT CARE

Latest results of the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) show dramatic across-the-board improvement in the performance of participating hospitals. Launched in October 2003 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Premier Inc. Healthcare Alliance, HQID involves about 250 hospitals in 36 states. The demonstration was designed to test new payment systems under Medicare that would improve the safety, quality and efficiency of care delivered in the nation’s hospitals. Given the series of reports issued over the past decade – starting with the Institute of Medicine’s 1999 landmark report “To Err is Human” – there is a growing awareness and well documented need for Medicare to change the way it pays for health care services. The outcomes from the third year of this demonstration provide yet even more evidence that paying for performance in health care in these innovative Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) initiatives can dramatically improve the quality of health care delivered to hospital patients. Individual hospital improvements are striking. Fifteen hospitals moved from “worst to first” rankings, moving from the bottom to the top fifth of hospitals in one or more clinical areas. These hospitals improved by an average 32.6 percentage points in quality scores over three years. “These Premier results show that Value-Based Purchasing can achieve excellent results in Medicare,” said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems. “Given these results, it is time to take the next step and implement hospital Value-Based Purchasing for the Medicare program, so that citizens across the nation can benefit from improved safety and quality get the right care, every time.”