The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will not update its overall hospital quality star ratings in July, as previously scheduled.
The change comes because of problems with data on three measures:
- central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI);
- Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections; and
- patient safety indicator composite measure, or PSI-90.
CMS said star ratings now will be updated publicly in October, and hospitals can preview the ratings in July. Hospitals can access their preview report by signing in to the QualityNet Secure Portal and should save a copy of the report for future reference.
The July update will suppress CLABSI data, as well as C. diff data for hospitals with incorrect information. In addition, the update will not refresh PSI-90 data.
Contact Director of Policy Erin O’Malley at eomalley@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.
