Article preview reprinted Medtech Insight - January 2009
Medtech Insight interviews Blair Childs, Premier Inc.'s SVP of public affairs, about how current quality initiatives, including Value-Based Purchasing, will affect medical device manufacturers.
Article preview reprinted Medtech Insight - January 2009
Health Care Trends: What Device Manufacturers Should Know About Value-Based Purchasing
The mission to drive out waste and increase safety in health care has given birth to initiatives that are changing the way hospitals evaluate and select medical supplies. Although a number of movements in this area have been introduced in the past, recent government mandates are forcing hospitals to find real solutions or suffer financial consequences in the form of lower reimbursement from Medicare.
The latest initiative to arise from the pressure hospitals face is Value-Based Purchasing, a term that refers to the medical care payors, employers, and consumers are buying from providers. The endeavor encompasses a number of areas, including the drive to provide greater information on what hospitals charge, public disclosure of where a facility ranks in terms of quality, and how much compensation providers receive based on quality.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been working to establish standards to rate the quality of care providers deliver and then set up a reimbursement system that rewards providers that measure well against the standards or punishes providers that perform poorly.
To gain full reimbursement, hospitals now must comply with a list of 10 "never events,"—which includes a number of hospital-acquired infections and injuries due to falls. CMS will no longer reimburse hospitals for the additional cost of treating these "never events" if patients develop any of the conditions during their hospital stay. That list is going to expand, and gauging what will be included in the future requires watching the innovators in this area, including the Premier Inc. health care alliance. The company had made a name for itself as a large group purchasing organization, but in the last few years, the operation has taken a leadership role in cost and quality initiatives and has worked closely with CMS on several projects in this area.
Recently, Medtech Insight spoke with Blair Childs, Premier's senior vice president of public affairs, about how the move towards quality affects medical device manufacturers. Childs says Premier is working with manufacturers who are interested in being at the forefront of the shifting market and who are taking part in Premier's QUEST program, which has brought together 160 hospitals to evaluate technology that can help hospitals improve quality and/or lower costs.
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Companies mentioned in this article:
Premier Inc.
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