Ohio hospitals earns Medicare quality incentive payments

Seven hospital systems in Ohio are among 230 nationwide that have been given a share of $12 million in Medicare pay-for-performance incentives, according to a press release from Premier Inc, a hospital quality and cost improvement alliance that oversees the pilot project.

The Ohio hospitals in the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration were Summa Health Systems Hospitals in Akron, Grandview Hospital & Medical Center in Dayton, Kettering Medical Center in Kettering, Community Health Partners of Ohio-West in Lorain, Sycamore Hospital in Miamisburg, Mercey Medical Center of  Springfield and St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo.

The three Dayton-area hospitals (Grandview, Kettering and Sycamore) were given almost $190,000 combined in incentive payments for quality measures attained in the fourth quarter of 2006 through the third quarter of 2007 (Source: “Local hospitals get Medicare cash for good care,” Dayton Daily News, Aug. 17, 2009).

According to an analysis by Premier of mortality rates hospitals participating in the four-year-old pilot program, the quality improvements saved the lives of an estimated 4,700 heart attack patients in four years, and the more than 1.5 million patients treated in five clinical areas at the 230 participating hospitals also received approximately 500,000 additional recommended evidence-based clinical quality measures, such as smoking cessation, discharge instructions and pneumococcal vaccination, during that same timeframe.