Core Measures

Core Measures



Chapter 1-Introduction

Background

The main component of agenda for improvements in hospitals brought about by external factors is based on core measures; core measures are a combination of measures used across the country to evaluate the improvements in quality. The hospitals started to concentrate on the core measures which are considered to be important in this time, approximately 15 years ago. The hospitals started to do so because these core measures were also considered by the Joint Commission when it accredits a hospital. From that time, these core measures are streamlined with the Centre of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) quality measurement for the program of Medicare. Moreover, these core measures are also adopted for the consensus process by the National Quality Forum. The core measures are widely used to benchmark the clinical performance in hospitals, which in turn helps in spurring improvements.

In a number of states of the United State, these core measures represent a fraction of the reporting process hospitals have towards the regulatory authorities. Not only this, but, the results of core measures are also published on various websites to facilitate consumers in finding out the hospitals which offers the best services; an example of these websites is HospitalCompare. Moreover, the core measures are now widely linked to the settlement as a par of the CMS pay-for-performance and Value Based Purchasing programs (Metzger and Schmidt, 2009).

Attaining good performance on these core measures is a challenging task for hospitals on various grounds especially for the hospital based clinical physician involved in teaching and training. However, it has been reported that quality measures are better met in hospital teachings.

Problem Statement

While it has been reported that quality measures are better met in hospital teachings, Attaining good performance on these core measures is a challenging task for hospitals on various grounds especially for the hospital based clinical physician involved in teaching and training. Usually resident core measures remained under determined, because of which quality improvements remain stagnant in hospital teachings.

Objectives

The objective of this study is to find out the core measure which determines a resident knowledge program to be the best in the entire system. This entails extensive research; to identify which resident knowledge core measures are used to identify the quality of a resident program.

General Research Question

The general research questions for this study include:

What are the major core measures in a hospital resident program?

What elements make a resident program the best, in terms of the benchmark set by the CMS?

Scope

This study will be beneficial for all the hospitals in formulating a resident program which is in accordance to the benchmarks set by CMS. Moreover, it will also benefit those hospitals that have little knowledge about the resident measures, in understanding and streamlining their resident programs according to the benchmarks.

Limitations

Because of time constraint, the researcher will not be able to visit and gather data from a big sample size; moreover, due to limitations in accessing the benchmarks set by CMS for the resident program, it would be complex for the researcher ...