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7th Annual Oregon Influenza SummitJoin Acumentra Health staff in Portland on September 2 at the 7th Annual Oregon Influenza Summit to prepare for a challenging fall flu season and learn the latest about H1N1 response and preparedness. Sponsored by the Oregon Adult Immunization Coalition, the conference takes place in conjunction with the state Immunization Program’s Oregon Public Provider Conference and optional Skills Fair and Clinical Training sessions on September 1 and 2. The Summit provides an update on influenza vaccine recommendations and hosts expert speakers on vaccine administration and best practices for improving protection against this deadly disease and its co-morbidities. Important training and networking opportunities are available for health profession students, direct-care providers, industry and health department leaders, occupational health professionals, Coalition partners, researchers/epidemiologists, and other stakeholders. Provider continuing education credit is pending. There is no registration fee; preregistration is required. To register and view the conference overview and agenda, visit http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/imm/adults/OAIC.shtml. Acumentra Health, a founding member of the Coalition, is helping a group of primary care practices use their electronic health record (EHR) systems to track and improve their flu shot rates. For more information on the EHR Preventive Care Initiative, contact Brad Hall, bhall@acumentra.org. Primary care yardstick for OregonThe Partner for Quality Care: Information for a Healthy Oregon initiative is moving toward reporting the results of consolidated quality measurements for more than 2,200 adult primary care practitioners (PCPs) across Oregon. In June 2009, individual practitioners and group practices received confidential “report cards” based on preliminary data, enabling them to compare the care their patients received in 2007 with best-practice standards and with the care provided by their peers in Oregon. The preliminary report covers 11 nationally endorsed measures, aggregated from claims data for nearly 1.7 million patients insured by eight major health plans. The measures address care for asthma, coronary artery disease, diabetes, and depression, as well as screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and Chlamydia. For most measures, the data represent care provided to commercial and some Medicaid managed care patients during 2005–2007. Public reporting is expected to occur in late 2009 for clinics with at least four adult PCPs. The updated measures, based on 2008 data from a larger set of health plans, will be posted on the initiative’s website for consumers. Partner for Quality Care is an initiative of the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation (Q Corp). Funding comes from foundations, purchasers, and health plans, including a grant from Aligning Forces for Quality, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Acumentra Health is represented on Q Corp’s board of directors. More information for providers and consumers is available at http://www.partnerforqualitycare.org. Hospital 30-day readmission and mortality rates publishedThe Department of Health and Human Services’ Hospital Compare website recently published mortality and readmission rates for hospitals across the country. The website reports data on Medicare fee-for-service patients discharged with diagnoses of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure (HF), or pneumonia (PN) between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2008. The data were based on claims and enrollment data; rates are risk adjusted. The Hospital Compare site indicates whether individual hospitals’ mortality and readmission rates are better than, no different from, or worse than the national average for each measure. Three Oregon hospitals had rates better (lower) than the national average: Rogue Valley Medical Center
Sacred Heart Medical Center—University District
St. Charles Medical Center—Bend
Oregon hospitals achieve 100 percent Medicare validationAcumentra Health recognizes three Oregon hospitals for achieving a 100 percent score on validation of medical records submitted for Medicare quality assurance and reporting. Validation results were recently released for records of patients discharged during 2008. 2nd quarter 2008
3rd quarter 2008
Validation is part of a process that qualifies hospitals to receive full payment from Medicare (called the Annual Payment Update, or APU). The 33 Oregon hospitals participating in Medicare's Prospective Payment System must meet specific data reporting and validation criteria:
Acumentra Health commends these hospitals for the diligence and accuracy represented by this achievement. |
In This Issue:www.acumentra.org August is National Immunization Awareness Month |
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Q-News, Issue 19 This material was prepared by Acumentra Health, Oregon’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy. 9SOW-OR-GEN-09-03 |
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