Feds Put HAC Data on Consumer Site

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has added rates of hospital acquired conditions for individual facilities to its consumer-oriented HealthCare.gov/compare Web site.


The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has added rates of hospital acquired conditions for individual facilities to its consumer-oriented HealthCare.gov/compare Web site.

The information shows the number of times per 1,000 discharges that a HAC occurred at a hospital affecting Medicare fee-for-service patients between October 2008 and June 2010. The eight HACs being tracked, the treatment of which Medicare will not reimburse, are:

* Blood infections from a catheter placed in the hospital,

* Urinary track infections from a catheter placed in the hospital,

* Falls, burns, electric shock, broken bones and other injuries during a hospital stay,

* Blood transfusions with incompatible blood,

* Pressure ulcers that develop after a patient enters the hospital,

* Injuries and complications from air or gas bubbles entering a blood vessel,

* Objects left in patients after surgery, and

* Poor control of blood sugar for patients with diabetes.

--Joseph Goedert

 

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