Quality Measure that Aligns with your Health Care Organization

Quality Measure that Aligns with your Health Care Organization
Quality Measures
One quality measure that aligns with NewYork-Presbyterian is Surgical Site Infection (SSI) prevention to reduce the rate of SSIs. SSIs refer to infections that occur within 30 days after surgery and are the third most common form of healthcare associate infections (HAIs) (Macefield et al., 2017). They threaten patient safety, increase hospital readmission rates, and increase the cost of healthcare, as will be discussed in this paper.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) identifies SSI rates as a hospital quality measure that should be publicly reported. According to the CMS (2019), this quality measure is assessed in terms of the percentage of surgery patients aged 18 years and above who develop an infection after a surgical procedure. Further, under the CMS, SSI falls under HAIs meaningful measure area. The measure has to be submitted every time a person aged 18 years and above undergoes a surgical procedure within the specified performance period (CMS, 2019). This measure is essential because it affects an important aspect of patient care; patient safety and outcome.
According to Macefield et al. (2017), SSI contributes to significant morbidity and mortality. Further, it is one of the leading causes of unplanned hospital readmission. Other than the health implications of SSI, there are also financial implications. According to Bakkum-Gamez and Dowdy (2017), the cost of managing SSI in the US is between $3.5 and $10 billion annually. Given the rising cost of healthcare, it is vital to reduce the cost sociated with preventable healthcare conditions, such as SSIs. Other financial costs are associated with lost wages or long-term disability following an SSI. For these reasons, the prevention of SSI has become a priority. The CMS (2019) considers SSI a preventable yet adverse surgical outcome that causes harm to patients and lowers the quality of healthcare. In addition, surgical procedures are commonly performed in the US, and as such, the SSI rate is a critical measure for surgical procedures and the associated quality of healthcare.
The percentage of surgical patients with SSIs has been included as a measure because SSIs are preventable. Also, this measure addresses the National Quality Strategy Priorities, hence its inclusion in CMS quality measure standards (CMS, 2019). The CMS not only u...