Burden, Beverly

If the objective of the measure is to improve quality and lower healthcare costs, then the following changes need to be made to the reporting of hospital quality data: oRequirement for manual chart abstraction is highly labor-intensive and increases human resource costs to hospitals, driving up healthcare costs dramatically. Strictly limit the number of measures that require manual chart abstraction oFor those facilities that have sustained performance >95% for all process performance measures for a period of at least 12 months, retire the process measure oAfter the process measure has been retired for one year, conduct a 5% sample review for that facility. If performance on the retired process measure meets or exceeds 95%, permanently retire the process measure for that facility. For those facilities consistently achieving >95% compliance on all process measures, limit data collection to claims-based outcomes measures (aside from random measurement of small sample population). All facilities would be required to participate in collection of any newly devised process measures, regardless of performance on retired process measures.