New Technologies Help Hospitals Tackle Patient Safety Push
Article preview reprinted from Medtech Insight - August 2008
CMS continues to tighten its rules on so-called "never events" - conditions acquired during hospitalization - in an ongoing effort to slash Medicare costs and improve care for hospitalized patients. And the HAC rules currently in place have already provided significant impetus for hospitals to take steps to improve the identification and prevention of nosocomial infections. Find out how a growing group of companies with innovative new technologies aim to capitalize on this trend by helping hospitals take their efforts even further.
Article preview reprinted from Medtech Insight - August 2008
New Technologies Help Hospitals Tackle Patient Safety Push
by Mary Thompson
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its final fiscal 2009 rule on nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) and many in the health care community are breathing a sigh of relief. The scope of the new rule is far narrower than what CMS had originally proposed, giving providers reason to celebrate. But the celebration could be short lived if the agency decides to revisit the issue in 2010 or beyond, and certainly efforts to reduce HACs are, in many ways, just beginning.
In fiscal 2008 (beginning October 1, 2007), as part of an ongoing effort to both reduce Medicare costs and improve care for hospitalized patients, CMS implemented a new payment rule for eight so-called "never events"—conditions acquired during hospitalization that are deemed reasonably preventable—that will no longer be covered under Medicare. These include relatively rare errors, such as leaving objects in the body following surgery and transfusing blood that is incompatible with the patient's blood type, along with more common problems like the development of Stage III and IV pressure ulcers and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. (See Exhibit 1.) If any of the eight never events occur during a patient's stay in the hospital, the additional treatment cost resulting from the event is no longer paid by Medicare and must be absorbed by the hospital. (See "Hospital-Acquired Conditions: Patient Safety Concerns Fuel Device Innovation," Medtech Insight, May 2008.)
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Companies mentioned in this article:
Abbott Laboratories Inc.
Accelr8 Technology Corp.
AdvanDx Inc.
Becton Dickinson & Co.
Columbia University
GeneOhm Sciences Inc.
NanoMR Inc.
University of Copenhagen
bioMerieux SA
BioMerieux Inc.
