Health Leaders Media writes: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to expand reporting of certain hospital-acquired infections beyond ICUs in an effort to reduce confusion among providers, health officials say. A two-pronged federal effort launching this year seeks to more accurately collect hospital-acquired infection rates. The new, more specific definitions of infections seek to reduce confusion among providers, health officials say. The aims are first to assure clinicians report beyond the ICU to general med-surge patients, and second, to prevent hospitals’ from subjectively interpreting what qualifies as a reportable infection.
In the first effort, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expanded reporting of central line-associated bloodstream (CLABSI) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) to all medical and surgical beds throughout a hospital, with reports starting Jan. 1, 2015. Before Jan. 1, only those infections in eligible hospital’s intensive care units showed up in the Medicare database through the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program on Hospital Compare.
Read more: Hospital Infection Reporting to Widen, Definitions to Get More Precise, Health Leader Media