Recovery Act funds to be used for improving patient care

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CCH® Healthcare Compliance — 05/28/09
Recovery Act funds to be used for improving patient care

Improving the quality of patient care and reducing the number of health care-associated infections (HAI) should be critical pieces of any effort to reform the American health care system, HHS Secretary Sebelius said during a speech before the United Nurses of America's 12th National Nurses Congress.

Sebelius expressed alarms over two reports published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The 2008 National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) found that health care quality is suboptimal and continues to improve at a slow pace. Receipt of needed health care varies widely, according to the report. While patients hospitalized with a heart attack receive 95 percent of recommended services, only 15 percent of patients on dialysis are registered on a kidney transplant waiting list. Across the core report measures tracked in the NHQR, the median level of receipt of needed care was 59 percent.

The NHQR also concluded that patient safety is lagging and that quality measures need improvement. The report recommends improved training for health care providers, increased use of health information technology and electronic medical records, and broader dissemination of information on quality of care.

The 2008 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) found that large disparities exist in the quality of patient care received among Americans. Access to care, provider biases, poor provider-patient communication, poor health literacy, and other factors contribute to such disparities, according to the report. Minority patients receive disproportionately poor care compared to white patients. At least 60 percent of quality measures have not improved for minorities compared to white patients over the past six years.

The full NHQR can be found at http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/qrdr. The full NHDR can be found at http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr08/nhdr08.pdf.

HHS Press Release, May 6, 2009.

http://health.cch.com/news/healthcare-compliance/052809a.asp