The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updated the Hospital Compare website to include hospital-provided data on central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI). Under the inpatient prospective payment system, hospitals must report CLABSI rates for adult, pediatric, and neonatal intensive care unit patients to receive a full payment update for fiscal year 2013. Hospitals participating in the hospital quality reporting program that have intensive care units began submitting the data last January to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network.

Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) introduced the Rural Hospital and Provider Equity Act (H.R. 3859), American Hospital Association and HAP-supported legislation that would provide additional Medicare funding for small and rural hospitals. The bill would improve Medicare payment for rural hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients, and adjust the low-volume adjustment for small prospective payment system hospitals that do not qualify as critical access hospitals. It also would extend reasonable cost reimbursement for clinical diagnostic laboratory services provided by small rural hospitals in certain states, and a 5 percent add-on payment for rural home health agencies, among other provisions.

HAP was part of an expert group of state infection preventionists tapped by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Keystone Center to identify promising health care-acquired infection (HAI) policies and interventions for a new national report, Policies for Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections: Lessons Learned from State Stakeholder Engagement. The lessons learned-oriented guide builds on the HAI policy toolkit, “Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections: State Policy Options,” and examines the early impact of policy on HAI. The ASTHO and CDC have collaborated since July 2010 to advance state-level HAI prevention efforts.