Abstract

Comment period on 2009 rule is open until June 13.

 

Article Content

Nine more conditions have been proposed to be added to this year's list of eight hospital-acquired conditions for which additional Medicare payments will be eliminated. The new conditions are delirium, surgical-site infection following certain elective procedures, Legionnaires' disease, iatrogenic pneumothorax, extreme blood sugar derangement, ventilator-associated pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus septicemia, Clostridium difficile-associated disease, and deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Nurses can submit comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services through June 13. Go to http://www.regulations.gov, search for the rule, and follow the instructions for submitting comments. Of particular interest is whether nurses will be permitted to verify the presence of these conditions on admission; now, only physicians can do so. Also of interest are case-mix adjustments and the inclusion of four nursing-care measures (failure to rescue rates, pressure ulcer prevalence and incidence by severity, patient falls prevalence, and rates of patient falls with injury) among those that hospitals must report.