CMS BLOG
February 3, 2016
By Patrick Conway, M.D., CMS Principal
Deputy Administrator and Chief Medical Officer
Nursing Facility Initiative Annual Report
Today
we released the annual report summarizing impacts from the Initiative to
Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents in 2014.
This three-year-old initiative is designed to test ways to reduce avoidable
hospitalizations among long-stay nursing facility residents. For such
individuals, avoidable hospitalizations can be dangerous, disruptive, and
disorienting. CMS research has estimated that 45% of hospitalizations among
nursing facility residents could be prevented with well-targeted interventions.
The
results in this report are based on experience during the second performance
year of the initiative, calendar year 2014. During this period, all seven sites
generally showed reductions in Medicare expenditures relative to a comparison
group, with statistically significant declines in total Medicare expenditures
at two sites. All sites also generally showed a decline in all-cause
hospitalizations and potentially avoidable hospitalizations, with four sites
showing statistically significant reductions in at least one of the
hospitalization measures. These early results are promising.
As
we plan for new Medicare payment
incentives to reduce hospital readmissions from skilled nursing facilities,
these results provide early indications that when the right strategies are in
place, they may effectively reduce hospitalization rates and reduce overall
Medicare spending. We anticipate gaining an even more complete
understanding of the initiative’s impacts as additional results from this
initiative become available.
These
promising early results come in tandem with impressive nationwide reductions in
inappropriate use of antipsychotics for nursing facility residents through the
National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care (http://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2014-Fact-sheets-items/2014-09-19.html).
These results demonstrate additional progress on the nation’s path to a health
system that achieves better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.
The
full report
is posted on the CMS website: [https://innovation.cms.gov/Data-and-Reports/index.html].
Additional information about the Initiative to
Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents is available
on the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office website: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare-Medicaid-Coordination/Medicare-and-Medicaid-Coordination/Medicare-Medicaid-Coordination-Office/ReducingPreventableHospitalizationsAmongNursingFacilityResidents.html
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