SSIs and Post-Op Dressings: What’s Missing?

You might remember from our previous blogs that certain measures, like surgical site infections (SSIs) are penalized in multiple programs of the Affordable Care Act—in the Value-Based Purchasing Program as well as the Hospital-Acquired Conditions Reduction Program. View Blog #2 and Blog #3 here. SSIs are the most common and costly of all hospital-acquired infections…

CAUTI Prevention: A Nurse-Driven Quality Improvement Study

As posted previously, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) established penalty measures for the performance of acute care hospitals. In fact, some measures are penalized in multiple programs1,2: VALUE-BASED PURCHASING PROGRAM (VBP) – For more information about the VBP Program, see our previous blog.  HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED CONDITIONS (HAC) REDUCTION PROGRAM – For more information about the HAC…

Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HAC) Reduction Program

Our last blog provided some background on the READMISSIONS REDUCTION PROGRAM —a three-year rolling process of reporting all-cause readmissions within 30 days of discharge, along with potential penalties.1  Today, we’ll look at the third program established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA): the HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED CONDITIONS (HAC) REDUCTION PROGRAM. HAC REDUCTION PROGRAM allows the Centers for…