In a nod to both the push for pay-for-performance and quality measures, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved a three-year extension of the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID).
The Premier HQID is a value-based purchasing project involving more than 250 hospitals across the country. The second-year demonstration results showed substantial improvement in quality of care across five clinical focus areas, with total gains over the first two years of 11.8 percentage points, CMS reported.Â
CMS will use the three-year extension to test new incentive models and develop new ways to measure quality. The initial participating hospitals have reported process and outcome measures in five clinical areas - acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), pneumonia, and hip and knee replacement - and have received incentive payments for providing high quality care. During the first three years of the project, only top-performing hospitals have been eligible for incentive payments. Â
