The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced its Hospital Compare website will include data about how often central-line associated bloodstream infections occur in ICUs across the country.
This step will hold hospitals accountable for bringing down CLABSI rates, according to CMS, saving thousands of lives and millions of dollars each year. CLABSIs are among the most serious of all healthcare-associated infections, resulting in thousands of deaths each year and nearly $700 million in added costs to the U.S. healthcare system, according to CMS.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated there were about 41,000 CLABSIs in U.S. hospitals in 2009. Caring for a patient with a CLABSI adds about $17,000 to a hospitalization, and the infections prolong hospitalizations and can cause death. Studies have showed up to 25% of patients who get a CLABSI will die from the infection.
"Today, consumers are getting access to data provided to hospital leaders and clinicians to monitor progress in reducing CLABSIs," CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, said in a news release. "This information allows CDC and CMS to highlight prevention and pinpoint where more work is needed on these avoidable infections."
Hospital Compare (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) receives about 1 million page views each month and is available in English and Spanish. Consumers have relied on the site since 2005 for information about the quality of care provided in more than 4,700 of America's acute-care, critical access and children's hospitals.
The website features free, easy-to-use information about hospitals, including mortality and readmission rates for each, along with 10 measures that capture patient experience with hospital care, 17 measures that assess patient safety at each hospital, 25 process-of-care measures and three children's asthma care measures.
The announcement builds on efforts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to make American healthcare safer. In 2011, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius launched the Partnership for Patients initiative (www.healthcare.gov/compare/partnership-for-patients/), which seeks to reinvent American healthcare delivery in ways that keep patients from being injured or getting sicker in the healthcare system.
CMS has already recruited over 6,000 partners, including more than 3,000 hospitals, in that effort, which aims to reduce cases of preventable harm in hospitals by 40% by 2014.
This step will hold hospitals accountable for bringing down CLABSI rates, according to CMS, saving thousands of lives and millions of dollars each year. CLABSIs are among the most serious of all healthcare-associated infections, resulting in thousands of deaths each year and nearly $700 million in added costs to the U.S. healthcare system, according to CMS.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated there were about 41,000 CLABSIs in U.S. hospitals in 2009. Caring for a patient with a CLABSI adds about $17,000 to a hospitalization, and the infections prolong hospitalizations and can cause death. Studies have showed up to 25% of patients who get a CLABSI will die from the infection.
"Today, consumers are getting access to data provided to hospital leaders and clinicians to monitor progress in reducing CLABSIs," CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, said in a news release. "This information allows CDC and CMS to highlight prevention and pinpoint where more work is needed on these avoidable infections."
Hospital Compare (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) receives about 1 million page views each month and is available in English and Spanish. Consumers have relied on the site since 2005 for information about the quality of care provided in more than 4,700 of America's acute-care, critical access and children's hospitals.
The website features free, easy-to-use information about hospitals, including mortality and readmission rates for each, along with 10 measures that capture patient experience with hospital care, 17 measures that assess patient safety at each hospital, 25 process-of-care measures and three children's asthma care measures.
The announcement builds on efforts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to make American healthcare safer. In 2011, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius launched the Partnership for Patients initiative (www.healthcare.gov/compare/partnership-for-patients/), which seeks to reinvent American healthcare delivery in ways that keep patients from being injured or getting sicker in the healthcare system.
CMS has already recruited over 6,000 partners, including more than 3,000 hospitals, in that effort, which aims to reduce cases of preventable harm in hospitals by 40% by 2014.
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