CMS to develop system for long-term care quality reporting

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will develop a new records system to facilitate quality reporting for long-term hospital care, according to a posting Feb. 6 in the Federal Register.

The system will compile and eventually publish on the internet specific quality metrics quantifying the care quality provided to patients staying in long-term care hospitals. According to the notice, the first measure collected is the "The Percent of Patient Residents with Pressure tUlcers That are New or Worsened." Metrics surrounding catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central line-associated blood stream infections also will 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. 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.