, Jan. 19, 2016 — HealthAlliance Hospital campuses in Kingston rank No. 2 and No. 3 for having the lowest hospital-acquired condition rates in New York state, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported.
The campuses rank better than any other hospital between New York City and Albany.
Hospital-acquired conditions, or HACs, are potentially deadly medical conditions or complications a patient can pick up during a hospital stay. They can include healthcare-associated infections, including pneumonia. They can also include non-infection conditions, such as side effects from a bad drug interaction, a transfusion with the wrong blood type, or bedsores.
CMS lists HAC rates as part of the Affordable Care Act to educate the public and as an incentive to raise hospital quality and safety standards.
Eliminating HACs is a stated priority of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CMS is an HHS agency.
HealthAlliance Hospital's Broadway Campus had a total score of 1.75 and the Mary's Avenue Campus had a total score of 2, CMS said in its "Fiscal Year 2016 Results for the CMS Hospital-Acquired Conditions Reduction Program."
The lower the score, the less likelihood a patient will pick up an undesirable condition while in the hospital. A score of 1 is the best; 10 is the worst. The state average was 5.9.
Hospitals scoring higher than 6.75 will be penalized this year by having their Medicare payments cut 1 percent, CMS said.
Each hospital in the country received a CMS score for HACs, based on the hospital's national percentile ranking in two measures. The first was how well it conformed to HHS patient-safety indicators, known as AHRQ quality indicators after HHS's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The second measure was how well it met CDC measures for tracking healthcare-associated infections.
The measures looked at bloodstream and urinary-tract infections from a catheter, surgical-site infections and a composite score based on a mean of eight AHRQ quality indicators, ranging from a potentially life-threatening postoperative infection complication known as sepsis to accidental punctures and lacerations and bedsores.
"Patient safety is HealthAlliance's top priority, and we're very pleased we ranked so extremely well in preventing hospital-acquired conditions," said Jose Serpa, HealthAlliance's administrative director of quality and performance improvement. "The CMS safety goals are very high, and we, as a high-quality healthcare organization, responded aggressively to ensure we met the standards."
"A hospital-acquired condition rate is a very important measure of hospital quality and safety," Serpa added. "It's important to consider when deciding what hospital to go to. The government statistics show that the chances of getting a hospital-acquired condition at HealthAlliance are almost zero."
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services fact sheet about hospital-acquired condition rates, including the raw data, can be found at https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2015-Fact-sheets-items/2015-12-10-2.html
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About HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley®
HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley® is the alignment of HealthAlliance Hospital: Mary's Avenue Campus and Broadway Campus, as well as Margaretville Hospital, Mountainside Residential Care Center and Woodland Pond at New Paltz. As the parent organization with a unified governance structure, the goal of HealthAlliance is to strengthen the quality of care and bring forward enhanced technology to serve the present and future healthcare needs in the Hudson Valley. HealthAlliance and its affiliate facilities are committed to providing compassionate, patient-centered care and ensuring patient safety, privacy and dignity to all. For further information about HealthAlliance, visit our website at www.hahv.org.
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