CMS plans Hospital Improvement and Innovation Networks

Patrick Conway, MD, CMO of CMS

Seeking to improve patient safety and reduce hospital readmissions, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is readying a series of "Hospital Improvement and Innovation Networks" (HIINs). 

HIINs will be part of the CMS' Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) initiative and will work started by the Hospital Engagement Networks (HENs) under the Partnership for Patients initiative. To that end, CMS published a request for proposals (RFPs) to develop the HIINs with a goal to achieve a 20 percent decrease in overall patient harm and a 12 percent reduction in 30-day hospital readmissions from a 2014 baseline, according to CMS Chief Medical Officer Patrick Conway, MD.

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"The further integration of work across these influential networks will permit the continued and increased systematic use of proven practices to improve patient safety and reduce readmissions, at a national scale in all U.S. hospitals," Conway wrote on The CMS Blog.

The HIINs will engage with the nation's hospitals, patients and caregivers to implement best practices. These organizations, working under the umbrella of the Partnership for Patients initiative,  have decades of experience with quality improvement and are currently supporting more than 250 communities nationally in work to improve care transitions and reduce adverse drug events across a wide variety of health care and community-based organizations.

[Also: CMS opens requests for proposals for new initiative to reduce hospital readmissions]

Efforts to improve patient safety are already making progress. A report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in December showed an "unprecedented" 39 percent reduction in preventable patient harm in U.S. hospitals compared to the 2010 baseline, Conway said. This has resulted in 2.1 million fewer patients harmed, 87,000 lives saved, and nearly $20 billion in cost-savings from 2010 to 2014. The nation has also made substantial progress in reducing 30-day hospital readmissions.

"I have been working in the field of quality improvement for 20 years, and I have never before seen results such as these," Conway wrote. "This work, though, is far from done, and it is imperative that we sustain and strengthen efforts to address patient safety problems, such as central line infections and hospital readmissions."

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