LRMC Earns 7 Awards for Quality Performance in Medicare, Premier Healthcare Alliance Value-based Purchasing Project
09/14/2009
Lapeer Regional Medical Center (LRMC) has been notified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that it has won seven awards for quality performance in the Premier healthcare alliance value-based purchasing (VBP) project that rewards hospitals for delivering high-quality care in five separate clinical areas.
Based on fourth-year results from the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project, LRMC received awards categorized as “Top Performance, Top Improvement and/or Attainment” in the clinical areas of Pneumonia, Acute Myocardial Infarction, Hip and Knee Replacement, and Heart Failure.
“Providing outstanding patient care has always been our primary mission,” said LRMC President and CEO Bart Buxton. “Our successes in this project are a testament to our ongoing efforts to improvement the quality of care we offer our patients.”
“The successes of the hospitals – small and large, urban and rural, teaching and non-teaching – in the HQID project have led to its consideration as the basis for key national health reforms,” said Susan DeVore, Premier President and CEO. “As the proposal of a national value-based purchasing program becomes a reality, hospitals participating in HQID will have six years experience with such a model.”
LRMC will receive the following awards:
•Top Improver and Attainment in the clinical area of Acute Myocardial Infarction (composite score 97.10%)
•Attainment in the clinical area of Heart Failure (composite score 94.60%)
•Top Improver and Attainment in the clinical area of Hip and Knee Replacement (composite score 98.36%)
•Top Performer and Attainment in the clinical area of Pneumonia (composite score 96.34%)
Launched in October 2003 by the Premier healthcare alliance CMS, the HQID) value-based purchasing project is comprised of approximately 250 hospitals across the nation.
“This is the first national project of its kind,” said LRMC Quality Director Monica Lareau. “The HQID project has resulted in a 17.2 percent overall increase in hospital quality scores during the first four years of the project. LRMC is proud to participate on a national project to improve the quality of care for the patients in our community.”
About the HQID project
The HQID is the first national project of its kind, designed to determine if economic incentives to hospitals are effective at improving the quality of inpatient care. Through the project, which has been extended by CMS for an additional three years, Premier collects a set of more than 30 evidence-based clinical quality measures from almost 250 hospitals across the country. The quality measures were developed by government and private organizations (for more information on the indicators, visit: www.qualitydemo.com).
HQID tracks 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.
Improvements in quality of care saved an estimated 4,700 acute myocardial infarction (AMI/heart attack) patients across the first four years of the project, according to an analysis of mortality rates at hospitals participating in the project. In addition, patients received approximately 500,000 additional recommended evidence-based clinical quality measures, such as smoking cessation, discharge instructions and pneumococcal vaccination, during that same timeframe.
For hospitals participating in the HQID project, the average Composite Quality Score (CQS), an aggregate of all quality measures within each clinical area, improved by 2.2 percent between the project’s third and fourth year for total gains of 17.2 percent over the project’s first four years.
Additional research by Premier using the Hospital Compare dataset showed that, by March 2008, HQID participants scored on average 6.9 percentage points higher (94.64 percent to 87.36 percent) than non-participants when evaluating 19 common Hospital Compare measures.
About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
The Premier healthcare alliance is more than 2,200 U.S. hospitals and 58,000-plus other healthcare sites working together to improve healthcare quality and affordability. Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier works with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Premier has offices in San Diego, Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and Washington.
About Lapeer Regional Medical Center
LRMC is a 222-bed acute care hospital located at 1375 N. Main Street, Lapeer. LRMC is the primary provider of health care services to Lapeer County and the surrounding area. LRMC offers a comprehensive range of specialties and services to meet medical and surgical needs, along with an exceptional team of medical professionals who provide high quality, expert care.
