On March 25, the GNYHA Quality and Patient Safety Steering Committee met with Barbara Paul, M.D., Director, Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Quality Initiatives, as well as representatives from the NYS Department of Health (DOH) and from the quality improvement organizations for NYS (IPRO), NJ (Pro NJ), and Conn. (Qualidigm) to discuss public reporting initiatives. New York is one of three pilot states selected by CMS; New York hospitals have been requested to work with IPRO to voluntarily report performance on 10 clinical process measures and to participate in a patient-experience-of-care survey. The deadline for participation in the project was March 28, 2003; as of that date over 70 hospitals in New York had agreed to participate. Participation will provide hospitals with the opportunity to work with CMS staff on refining and designing the methodology for future public reporting initiatives.

At the March 25 meeting, Dr. Paul focused on the value of collaborating with hospitals and GNYHA to ensure that the final product of the public report card pilot will be well accepted by hospitals nationwide. GNYHA members emphasized their concern to Dr. Paul that participation in the pilot may further drain resources, and although hospitals are committed to public reporting of quality, performance agencies should be sensitive to the current financial stresses facing hospitals. In addition to the CMS pilot project, DOH staff discussed their mandate to develop a NYS report card that will use claims-based data to track clinical hospital performance. GNYHA will work closely with the State to ensure that its report card will be a valuable tool for the hospital as well as for consumers. GNYHA will continue to work with members on providing best practices to achieve optimal performance on the public report card pilot project, track expenses related to public report card initiatives, and provide ongoing input on current and future quality and patient safety reporting systems. For information about the public reporting initiatives, contact Terri Straub at GNYHA.