In a letter sent to hospitals participating in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) says it is suspending data collection for the Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock: Management Bundle measure (NQF #0500) until further notice.

Quality and safety improvement begins with accurate measurement of the problem, including recording every incident regardless of whether a patient was seriously harmed or not. However, recent data from Massachussetts shows that better measurement can create a drastic increase in the rate of adverse events — in this case an attention grabing jump of 70 percent in one year.

New results from the 22-hospital Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative (TSQC) indicate that in just three years, the 10 original hospitals that formed the collaborative were able to reduce surgical complications by 19.7 percent and 30-day mortality by 31.5 percent. The hospitals’ researchers say this equates to at least 533 lives saved and $75.2 million in reduced costs.

The National Quality Forum’s (NQF) Board of Directors has approved a robust trial to measure the potential impact and implications of creating a risk factor that would adjust relevant hospital payment quality measures to take into account the challenges presented in achieving the same outcomes for patients with low socioeconomic and/or minority status as for those who are more well off economically and not minorities.

The annual survey of hospital safety and quality by the non-profit Leapfrog Group and Castlight Health finds improvement and increased participation by hospitals, but also reflects a “surprisingly high variance” in high-risk procedure survival rates and hospital-acquired injury and infection rates.

One of the nation’s largest hospital engagement networks (HENs) is the more than 1,500-member HEN operated by the American Hospital Association (AHA) and its Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET). In its first 28 months of operation, it says it saved more than $1.3 billion by reducing the incidence of preventable harm, readmissions and infections, as well as the incidence of early elective deliveries.

The Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, is this year’s American Hospital Association (AHA)-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize winner for its “impressive culture of safety and focus on effectiveness.”

The annual ranking of U.S. hospitals by the news magazine U.S. News & World Report has long stirred controversy, particularly by the heavy weight it gives to hospital reputation as measured by the votes of just a few hundred American Medical Association member physicians. However, its influence in hospital marketing is undeniable.