CMS report: Health system quality improving

A new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report showed that from 2006 to 2012, U.S. healthcare facilities significantly improved quality of care (Source: “CMS data reinforces that processes are easier to improve than outcomes,” Modern Healthcare, March 3, 2015). 

According to the 2015 National Impact Assessment of Quality Measures report from CMS, 95 percent of 119 publicly reported performance ratings had improvements. A total of 41 measures were classified as “high performing.” That translates to performance rates exceeding 90 percent in the three final years for which data were available.

Process measures were most likely to reach the high performer level with 34 out of the 41. Process measures look at how well facilities follow clinical guidelines while clinical outcome measures look at how patients actually fare. 

CMS said almost 7,000 physicians will be eligible for value-based increases in Medicare payments in 2015 if they can show evidence of high-quality care.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 lives were saved through improved performance on inpatient hospital heart-failure process measures, for example, and 4,000 to 7,000 infections were averted through improved performance on inpatient hospital surgical process measures during the period studied.