Half of Delaware's hospitals penalized by federal government for patient safety

Three of Delaware's six general hospitals have been penalized by the federal government for patient safety.

Bayhealth-Milford Memorial Hospital, Beebe Medical Center and Nanticoke Memorial Hospital will lose 1 percent in Medicare payments for having too many patient injuries and infections.

Despite the penalty, all three hospitals say they've made changes in the past year to reduce the number of infections.

Four years ago, the Hospital-Acquired Conditions Reduction Program was created under the Affordable Care Act as an incentive for hospitals to improve their quality of care. The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is required to adjust payments to hospitals that rank in the bottom 25 percent in certain quality measures.

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Of the 3,300 hospitals evaluated, 751 were penalized this year. Specialty hospitals, such as children's and Veterans Affairs hospitals, are exempt.

Delaware and Connecticut had the highest percentage of hospitals penalized. Fifteen of the 30 hospitals in Connecticut will lose 1 percent of their Medicare payments.

All of the conditions the federal government measures are considered to be potentially avoidable. They include infections from urinary tract catheters, colon surgeries, hysterectomies and central line tubes inserted into veins, as well as rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile (C-diff).

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The government also looks at the rate of common in-hospital injuries including bed sores, hip fractures and blood clots.

Penny Short, chief operating officer at Nanticoke, said the hospital takes the penalty "very seriously" and uses this data to help focus on areas where the organization needs to improve.

Short said Tuesday she didn't know yet how much money the hospital would lose in funding from the 1 percent payment reduction. But at the hospital, "every dollar counts," she said.

"We're a small organization, so any reduction is a hit for us," she said.

But since the data is from January 2015 to December 2016, Short said, these evaluations don't always show the progress the hospitals have made in the meantime.

In 2015, Nanticoke noticed an increase in C-diff and central line infections, which contributed to its recent penalty, and implemented new programs and policies to combat these conditions. Since then, the hospital has seen a "dramatic" decrease, Short said.

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Dr. Gary Siegelman, chief medical officer at Bayhealth, said in a statement that the hospital has also made improvements to reduce infections in the last 24 months.

These changes include better managing blood glucose levels after surgery, reducing the unneeded use of urinary catheters and limiting blood draws when using specialized IV lines. Bayhealth staff is now using electronic health records that have helped improve communication through centralized messaging, he said.

These efforts have led "to improved patient outcomes that are better than national targets," he said.

Beebe Healthcare was also penalized for its C-diff infections. In the past three years, the hospital has been able to reduce this infection rate to where it's now less than the national average, said Marcy Jack, Beebe Healthcare's chief quality and safety officer.

Jack said in a statement that the hospital did this by using new cleaning equipment, improving patient room cleaning procedures and teaching nurses, doctors and technicians about certain precautions.

Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or at mnewman@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @merenewman.