CMS plans to relaunch Partnership for Patients program

A revamped version of the CMS Partnership for Patients program will launch with an improved tracking methodology to reduce hospital-acquired conditions and readmissions, according to Modern Healthcare. The new initiative would last one year and target 10 patient safety categories: adverse drug events, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections, injuries from falls and immobility, obstetrical adverse events, pressure ulcers, readmissions, surgical site infections, venous thromboembolism, and ventilator-associated pneumonia. Patrick Conway, CMS chief medical officer, announced a bidding process for new Partnership for Patients contracts in a blog post last week.

The original three-year program ended in December 2014, with CMS estimating that hospital-acquired conditions dropped by 17% between 2010 and 2013. The original initiative had state hospital associations, U.S. health systems, and other companies form hospital engagement networks with the goal of reducing hospital-acquired conditions by 40% and readmissions by 20%. The results were questioned because hospitals didn’t use common measures to track quality and safety improvements, but the new contracts will require all participants to use identical performance measures.

Read the CMS blog post about the program here.