Hospitals
Facilities that convert to critical access hospitals and qualify for cost-based reimbursements from Medicare experience improved performance for several procedures and four patient safety indicators, or PSIs, according to a study in Health Services Research.
Researchers examined a sample of Iowa hospitals and found that CAH conversions were associated with consistent improvements on risk-adjusted PSIs. However, conversions had no impact on death rates for other conditions with low-mortality rates.
The study credited the improved financial status of converted hospitals with increased quality, noting earlier research that tied hospitals' finances with investments in quality improvement efforts (Li et al., Health Services Research, December 2007).