09 Sep Better Patient Safety Linked to Lower Hospital Readmission Rates
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Sheila Eckenrode, RN, CPHQ
Project Manager
Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System (MPSMS)
Qualidigm
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We sought to investigate the association at the hospital-level between 21 in-hospital adverse event rates and both mortality and readmission rates for Medicare Fee-For-Service patients with AMI. We used data from the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System (MPSMS), the nation’s largest randomly selected hospital medical record-abstracted patient safety database, and data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which includes hospital performance on mortality and readmissions for over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals, to assess the association between hospital performance on patient safety and hospital performance on 30-day all-cause mortality and readmissions for Medicare fee-for-service patients discharged with AMI.
We found that hospital performance on patient safety is associated with hospital performance on mortality and readmission rates for AMI. Hospitals with poorer patient safety performance are likely to have higher 30-day all-cause mortality and readmission rates for these patients.
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Our findings suggest that continuing national efforts to improve patient safety may lead to simultaneous reductions in hospital 30-day all-cause mortality and readmission rates for patients with AMI. Adverse event rates may be a marker of overall hospital quality that tie directly with other quality outcomes currently being measured.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: By associating currently measured markers of patient safety and care quality, future studies at the hospital level may be used to demonstrate system wide interventions that lead to improvements in care delivery and the unique characteristics that distinguish high performing hospitals.
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Response: Our study represents a unique, large, and recent investigation of the associations between hospital performance on patient safety and mortality and readmission for Medicare patients with AMI .
Our findings extend previous studies that focused on the association between adverse events and outcomes from the patient-level to the hospital-level.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Association Between Hospital Performance on Patient Safety and 30‐Day Mortality and Unplanned Readmission for Medicare Fee‐for‐Service Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction
Yun Wang, Noel Eldridge, Mark L. Metersky, Nancy Sonnenfeld, Jonathan M. Fine, Michelle M. Pandolfi, Sheila Eckenrode,Anila Bakullari, Deron H. Galusha, Lisa Jaser, Nancy R. Verzier, Sudhakar V. Nuti, David Hunt, Sharon‐Lise T. Normand, and Harlan M. Krumholz
J Am Heart Assoc. 2016;5:e003731, originally published July 12, 2016,doi:10.1161/JAHA.116.003731
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Last Updated on September 9, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD