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Validity of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Patient Safety Indicators and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Hospital-acquired Conditions: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Winters BD, Bharmal A, Wilson RF, et al. Validity of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Patient Safety Indicators and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Hospital-acquired Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Med Care. 2016;54(12):1105-1111.
The ability to use administrative data to measure patient safety is critical, because chart review is time-consuming and resource-intensive. The AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) and the CMS Hospital-acquired Conditions (HACs) aim to measure and track patient safety using administrative data. PSIs are often used for pay-for-performance, and CMS has a policy of nonpayment for hospitalizations associated with HACs. This systematic review found that PSIs and HACs have not been adequately validated compared to chart review and therefore may be subject to coding error. Establishing hospital quality or payment based on unvalidated metrics has consequences for patient safety efforts. These results suggest that unless further development and validation of administrative metrics occurs, widespread implementation of pay-for-performance efforts may not significantly improve patient safety.
