Wayne Hospital Among Those Penalized for Acquired Conditions

WAYNE, MI — Medicare and Medicaid payments have been cut at 27 Michigan hospitals, including one in Wayne, where patients became sicker due to infections acquired in the hospitals, according to a report released Wednesday by Kaiser Health News. Of the Michigan hospitals, 60 percent are in the Detroit and Flint areas, and Beaumont Hospitals, the largest health system in the state, has five of the eight Metro Detroit hospitals on the list.

Nationwide, 769 hospitals received cuts from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Metro Detroit/Flint area hospitals include: Beaumont Hospital – Farmington Hills; Beaumont Hospital – Taylor; Beaumont Hospital – Wayne; Beaumont Hospital – Grosse Pointe; Beaumont-Hospital – Royal Oak; Detroit Receiving Hospital and University Health Center, Detroit; Gensys Regional Medical Center – Health Park, Grand Blanc; Harper University Hospital, Detroit; Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital; Hurley Medical Center, Flint; Karmanos Cancer Center, Detroit; McLaren Flint; Providence-Providence Park Hospital, Southfield; St. Joseph Mercy – Pontiac; and Sinai Grace Hospital, Detroit.

Others on the list include Bronson Battle Creek Hospital; Edward w. Sparrow Hospital in Lansing; Garden City Hospital; Memorial Healthcare, Owosso; Mid-Michigan Center – Clare; Munson Medical Center, Traverse City; St. Mary’s Health Care, Grand Rapids; Spectrum Healthcare – Butterworth Campus, Grand Rapids; St. Joseph Mercy, Ann Arbor; University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor; and UP Health System Portage, Hancock.

In a statement, Beaumont Health said:

“Beaumont Health is always working to reduce the chances of infection and our focus is to address the root causes of hospital acquired infections through consistent hand hygiene, strict protocols for central and IV lines and catheters, and the use of special antibacterial products. The CMS data just published is from 2014-2015. We closely track infection rates and more recent data shows our prevention efforts have resulted in improvement in infections at our hospitals.”

The goal of the program is to hold hospitals accountable for hospital acquired infections and to shift hospitals into a thought process of giving higher quality and care performance, rather than higher volume of services. For the first time, the evaluation also included counting the spread of antibiotic-resistant germs in assessing penalties.

Penalized hospitals will lose 1 percent of Medicare payments for a year. Estimated losses among larger hospitals will exceed $1 million dollars. Reductions also apply to hospitals servicing low-income areas.
Nationally, hospital acquired infection rates declined 21 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

“Medicare is having a dramatic impact on decreasing medical errors,” Bret Jackson, president of the Economic Alliance of Michigan, said in a news release. “However there is more work to be done. Thousands of Michigan residents each year are the victims of medical errors and we must address it.”

In November 2016, EAM released a study demonstrating how CMS hospital star ratings skew lower for hospitals servicing Michigan’s poor and that socioeconomic factors may be a factor. The study can be found here: Socioeconomic Factors Impact on Hospital Quality.

For additional information on Kaiser Health News report go to Latest Hospital Injury Penalties Include Crackdown On Antibiotic Resistant Germs.

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