New Jersey’s hospitals and health systems averted 77,342 cases of patient harm and saved $641 million in healthcare costs between 2012 and 2016 by participating in a quality improvement program with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
HHS awarded the New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA) a federal contract as a “hospital engagement network” in 2011 under the quality improvement provisions of the Affordable Care Act. With contract extensions, the total value of the federal contract was $10.3 million. The program continues, with New Jersey becoming one of 16 “hospital improvement innovation networks” now moved under the umbrella of the Medicare program to focus on improved care for the program’s beneficiaries.
NJHA recently released a report on the five-year experience to document the improvements in care and the resulting healthcare cost savings. New Jersey hospitals achieved double-digit improvement in occurrence rates in 13 different categories, including post-surgical infections, patient falls, adverse drug events, and hospital readmissions. (The report is available online at: http://bit.ly/2nAwMLl.)
The top three areas with the greatest declines in incidence rates are adverse drug events (a 55% decline), venous thromboembolism (50%), and early elective deliveries before week 39 of a pregnancy (49%.) The results that generated the greatest healthcare cost savings are $581.6 million in savings by reducing the rate of hospital readmissions by 30%, $34.5 million in savings by reducing the rate of pressure ulcers by 38%, and $9.4 million in savings through the decline in adverse drug events.
The improvements are the result of a series of education programs with industry experts, the report says. Other keys to improvement include standard use of industry best practices, uniform use of tools like checklists and algorithms, monthly data collection, and routine sharing among participants.
