Transparency of Healthcare Quality

Transparency of Hospital Accreditation Surveys

Sept. 13, 2022.  COVID-19 Risk Adjustment May Place Patients At Risk.
Risk adjustment should only be performed when mitigation strategies cannot be implemented. It should not be used to normalize deviance or to mask or make poor performance acceptable. If risk adjustment is done, the raw data should be readily available to researchers and the public. Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) meeting. Sept. 13, 2022   View Written Comment

Nov. 2017:  Patient advocates and business purchasing aliances letter to Senator Grassley supporting transparency of hospital accrediation surveys.  View Letter

Sept. 2017:  Senator Charles Grassley sends a letter to CMS in support of transparency (public availablity) of hospital accreditation surveys.  The letter asks for the changes in the law which need to be made to allow the public release of accreditation surveys.  View Letter 

Aug. 2017:  CMS reverses its proposal for the new regulation, stating it could be viewed as circumventing the Social Security Act. View Federal Register (Pages 38498-38499)

Apr. 2017:  CMS publishes proposed regulations to require healthcare facility accrediting organizations to make accrediting surveys available to the public.  Part of the justification given was the high disparity rate between surveys performed accrediting organizations and follow-up surveys performed by CMS.   View Proposed Regulations 

• Support letter signed by over 50 patient advocate/advocate organizations along with business purchasing alliances.   View Letter

July 2014:  Letter to Senator Grassley on the Senate Finance Committee, to make hospital accreditation surveys transparent.  This was in response for a Senate Finance Committee call for ideas regarding transparency.  View Letter

Sept. 2011:  Call for Repeal of the Provision in the Social Security Act Which Prevents the U. S. Dept of Health and Human Services from making public hospital accreditation surveys.   

• Letter signed by over 50 patient advocate and advocate organizations to Senator Harkin.  View Letter to Senator Harkin

• Letter signed by 20 business healthcare purchasing alliances to Senator McConnell.  View Letter to Senator McConnell     CMS Response

• The Joint Commission's Response.  View Letter

U.S. Senate Enquiry:  Control and Prevention of Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). 

• CMS places on hold their recommendations to roll back infectious disease reporting.  USA Today coverage of HW USA's efforts and the favorable outcome:   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/03/feds-plan-reverse-plan-release-hospital-infection-data/897080002/  

Read HW USA & PSAN's Comment Letter Regarding the Regulation:  View Letter  

• 2008, Feb. - Senator McConnell's Letter in Response to Lexington Herald Leader Op Ed: View Letter  View Op-Ed

• 2010, Jun. - Congressional Inquiry by Senator McConnell to obtain the results of the Veterans Administration Protocol to control MRSA.   View Letter

• 2010, May. - Results of Congressional Inquiry which obtained the National Veterans Administration protocol results for control of MRSA.   View Document