In collaboration with the Department for Medicaid Services (DMS) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Kentucky Health Information Exchange (KHIE) is offering Pharmacies, Eligible Providers (EPs), Eligible Hospitals (EHs) and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) the opportunity to apply for a mini-grant to offset the vendor fees associated with connecting to KHIE.

The Provider Assistance Program was created to help Pharmacies, EPs, EHs and CAHs in rural areas of the state to mitigate the challenges associated with interoperability. The objective is to relieve a degree of the financial burden a health care facility experiences which hinders engagement in Public Health and Clinical Data Registry reporting as well as Health Information Exchange.

Applicants are required to be located in the state of Kentucky and considered an EP, EH or CAH (as defined by CMS) or a licensed pharmacy. If approved, EHs and CAHs may be awarded up to $15,000 and Pharmacies and EPs may be awarded up to $8,000. Grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis until all grant funds are depleted. Incomplete applications...

The Kentucky Hospital Association is actively recruiting a Director of Data Analytics, who will be responsible for conducting KHA’s research and data analysis activities. This position will also be responsible for a wide variety of health care data analysis and preparation of reports to assist the membership and to support the Association’s representation and advocacy function.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

Oversee claims-related data exchange programs and projects with other state associations. Perform analytical audits of KHA claims data for reasonableness and accuracy. Prepare white papers and other analysis and reports for the membership on various topics using KHA Claims Data and other data sources. Perform data analyses and prepare reports to support health policy analysis, representation, advocacy and planning as directed by the Vice President of Data and Health Information Services, Vice President of Financial Policy, Vice President of Member Services or the President. ...

KHA's book, Kentucky Hospital Statistics, is now available exclusively online. You can reach the book directly at https://www.kyha.com/kentucky-hospital-statistics.

Kentucky Hospital Statistics is a comprehensive compilation of data on Kentucky hospitals:

Numbers, types and location of hospitals in Kentucky Utilization of services Hospital finances Quality indicators Workforce and the economic impact of Kentucky’s hospitals as employers Statewide demographics Health status of Kentucky Each section will be updated as new data is available. Each update will be announced on the KHA blog.

You can reach the publication on www.kyha.com under Services->Publications->Special Publications or Data Center->Member Services Data or via the direct link listed above.

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KHA is pleased to release the Utilization Trend Report, updated with data from First Quarter 2014 through First Quarter 2018.

A copy of the report is available on the KHA website's Data Center, under Utilization.

If you have any questions, please contact Chuck Warnick at KHA (cwarnick@kyha.com).

The 2017 and 2018 KHA Patient Origin Reports are now available online in the Data Center section of the KHA website, www.kyha.com. Just click on the Utilization Data page of the Data Center to find them or visit www.kyha.com/online-patient-origin-report for a direct link.

To review the reports, you must obtain a special password from Chuck Warnick at KHA (cwarnick@kyha.com).

The CDC considers this the third wave of overdose deaths in the growing epidemic, characterized by a surge in synthetic opioid overdoses, following prescription opioid deaths (first wave) and heroin deaths (second wave). The death rate for synthetic opioids doubled to 6.2 per 100,000 people in 2016.

Because fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid, is increasingly mixed with other opioid and benzodiazepine pills, heroin and cocaine, the CDC suspects fentanyl is also contributing to rising death rates among those substances.

 

KHA is pleased to announce the 3rd Quarter 2017 Hospital CEO Dashboard Report. KHA has sent the reports via email to all hospital CEOs. The CEO Dashboard contains: 



Hospital Utilization Data  Hospital Physician Data (Attending and Surgical)  Hospital Product Line Distribution  Financial Data (Payer Information)  Quality Data  Workforce Data **KHA will collect Referring Physician data as of October 1, 2017, and future reports will contain Referring and Surgical Physician data.

The data sources for this report includes KHA InfoSuite, Kentucky Quality Counts (K-HIIN) data, Hospital Compare and KHA Annual Workforce Survey data.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the data, please contact Chuck Warnick (cwarnick@kyha.com) or Melanie Moch (mmoch@kyha.com).

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The AHA Annual Survey for fiscal year 2017 is now open. KHA will again provide front-line support for Kentucky hospitals. KHA's goal is to reach 80% participation by the state's hospitals. Please, complete the survey by May 18, 2018.

It is vitally important to collect accurate and updated information about all institutions each year. Health care leaders, policy makers and researchers use the AHA Annual Survey to better describe and understand the operations of U.S. hospitals.

The 2017 survey is being offered ONLINE at www.ahasurvey.org. If you have not done so before, you are encouraged to take advantage of the online data collection. More than 4,000 of your colleagues completed their survey electronically last year. The web-based collection tool is easy, efficient and secure. Entering the data online allows you to:

Receive real-time reports, enabling you to confirm the accuracy of your entry before submission and provide...

Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility (IRF) and Long-term Care Hospital (LTCH) providers are encouraged to review their performance data on each quality measure based on First Quarter 2016 to Fourth Quarter 2016 data, prior to the December 2017 IRF and LTCH Compare refresh, during which this data will be publicly displayed.

Providers have 30 days to review their performance data (September 1, 2017 through September 30, 2017).

Corrections to the underlying data will not be permitted during this time. However, providers can request a CMS review during the preview period if they believe their data is inaccurate.

For more information:

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Yesterday, KHA sent the new Hospital CEO Dashboard Report to all Kentucky hospital CEOs via email.

The CEO Dashboard contains:

Hospital Utilization Data  Hospital Physician Data (Attending and Surgical)  Hospital Product Line Distribution  Financial Data (Payer Information)  Quality Data  Workforce Data Please note, KHA will start collecting Referring Physician data as of October 1, 2017, and future reports you show Referring and Surgical Physician data.

The data sources for this report include KHA InfoSuite, Kentucky Quality Counts (K-HIIN) data, Hospital Compare and KHA Annual Workforce Survey data from calendar year of 2016.

Hospital CEOS will receive updated reports on a quarterly basis. 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the data, please contact Chuck Warnick (cwarnick@kyha.com) or Melanie Moch ( mmoch@kyha.com) at KHA.

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KHA is pleased to release the Utilization Trend Report, updated with data from January 1, 2012, through December 31, 2016.   

A copy of the report is available on the KHA website's Data Center, under Utilization.

If you have any questions, please contact Chuck Warnick at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via cwarnick@kyha.com).

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has revised online tutorials that help researchers and others use the agency’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). HCUP, the nation’s most comprehensive source of hospital data, includes national and state data on inpatient care, ambulatory care and emergency department visits. The updated HCUP Overview Course provides information about the sources of HCUP data, features of the database, software tools and products. Additional tutorials instruct users on...

As an added benefit for KHA members, the annual publication Kentucky Hospital Statistics is now available online. The book can be downloaded in pdf format for your convenience at www.kyha.com/CM/Publications/KY_Hospital_Statistics.aspx.

You will find this resource and others under "Special Publications" in the Publications tab of the KHA website, www.kyha.com.

Kentucky Hospital Statistics is a comprehensive compilation of data on Kentucky hospitals:

Numbers, types and location of hospitals in Kentucky (sample page) Utilization of services (sample page) Hospital finances (sample page) Quality indicators (sample page)...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced an error in calculating Clostridium difficile infection performance during the first two quarters of 2014. This error affects hospital performance in the fiscal year 2017 Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program, baseline performance in the FY 2018 hospital value-based purchasing program, and measure data reported on Hospital Compare in 2015. As a result, CMS is conducting a second review and corrections period for the FY 2017 HAC program from today through Sept. 30 to allow hospitals to review their updated C Difficile performance. CMS also has updated the baseline period performance standard for the FY 2018 VBP program, and intends to update the archived databases of Hospital Compare to reflect corrected performance data. For more information, see CMS’s QualityNet website.

A risk prediction model designed to forecast hospital readmissions based on patients’ electronic health records (EHR) for entire hospital stays was only modestly better than a model based on EHR data for just the day of admission, according to a new AHRQ-funded study. The study on predicting 30-day, all-cause hospital readmissions was based on data from nearly 33,000 hospital stays at six Dallas-Fort Worth hospitals from 2009 to 2010.

The authors stated their model was the first to use comprehensive EHR data from entire hospital stays. That model was shown to be only modestly better at predicting risk of readmission despite including many additional clinically relevant prognostic factors. The authors noted customized models that are disease-specific may be more effective in predicting readmission compared with the common multi-condition, readmission risk prediction model.

The study “Predicting All-Cause Readmissions Using Electronic Health Record Data From the Entire Hospitalization: Model Development...

KHA is pleased to release the Utilization Trend Report, updated with data from January 1, 2010 through September 30, 2015.   

A copy of the report is available at http://www.kyha.com/WCM/Services/Data_Information/Data_Reports.aspx.  If you have any questions, please contact Chuck Warnick at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via cwarnick@kyha.com).

The first week of January, each hospital will receive email notification from Compdata that participation for KHA's 2016 Compensation and Benefits Survey is open. Now is a good time to discuss the survey with your team to decide who will complete the survey in January for each of your locations (if applicable).

As a reminder, you will receive the survey results FREE of charge if you provide a complete data submission by the survey deadline. Don't miss out on the most comprehensive health care compensation resource in Kentucky — mark your calendar for January participation today!

If you have any questions, please contact Chuck Warnick at KHA (cwarnick@kyha.com).

KHA is investigating, as part of its strategic plan, developing an all-payer, all-Kentucky-hospital readmission tracking system. Current reporting is limited, through quality improvement (QI) programs, to readmissions within your hospital. While Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data does cover all hospitals, it is limited to Medicare patients. The value of creating a state-based system for collection will be to provide a true picture of readmissions and barriers as well as to replace manual, resource-intensive reporting in the future. KHA needs your input on the feasibility of developing a successful program.

KHA would offer aggregated reports to member facilities containing metrics for inpatient readmission. The reports would include all payer classifications within the database (Medicare, Medicaid Fee for Service, Medicaid Managed Care, Commercial, Self-Pay and Charity and Other Payers). The reports would be produced on a quarterly basis, and updated as new quarters of data are submitted.

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KHA has created a report examining the latest utilization trends for hospitals in Kentucky. The report (available at http://www.new-kyha.com/Portals/5/NewsDocs/UtilizationTrends20140806.pdf) includes data from the first quarter of 2009 through the first quarter of 2014.

With the addition of data from 2014, the impact of the Medicaid Expansion is demonstrated in the shift of total cases for Self Pay and Charity to Medicaid. For the types of cases examined, both inpatient and outpatient, this shift is evident.

Acute adult and pediatric cases continue to trend downward. Psychiatric and chemical dependency cases have an overall upward trend, but have experienced three quarters of continued decline. Conversely, physical rehabilitation cases trend slightly up, with increases in cases over the last three quarters.

The trend for outpatient cases with surgical procedures has remained flat. The large drop in the first quarter of 2013 reflects under-reporting by a major provider. Historically,...

Hospitals across the nation are struggling to maintain effective cybersecurity defenses, stay up to date on HIPAA compliance requirements and navigate the confusing waters of Meaningful Use audits. On August 6, KHA Solutions Group Affinity Partner LBMC Managed Security Services will host a webinar for KHA members that will help security and compliance personnel understand how to conduct a Risk Analysis that meets HIPAA and Meaningful Use requirements. It will also provide several practical steps hospitals can take to increase their cybersecurity defenses and reduce the likelihood of a data breach.

Participants will learn about mandates by the HIPAA Privacy and Security regulations — these regulations require hospitals to undertake mandatory periodic vulnerability scans as well as put in place systems to perform daily monitoring of data exchange and breach notification.

KHA Solutions Group has negotiated very competitive pricing for managed security services for KHA member hospitals. KHA Solutions...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is releasing new data and launching new initiatives at the annual Health Datapalooza conference in Washington, D.C.

On June 2, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its first annual update to the Medicare hospital charge data, or information comparing the average amount a hospital bills for services that may be provided in connection with a similar inpatient stay or outpatient visit. CMS is also releasing a suite of other data products and tools aimed to increase transparency about Medicare payments. The data on CMS’s website now includes inpatient and outpatient hospital charge data for 2012, and new interactive dashboards for the CMS Chronic Conditions Data Warehouse and geographic variation data. Also, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched a new open data initiative. Before the end of the conference, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will announce the winners of two data...

KHA has produced  a report for its members on payments and denials from Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs). The report includes prompt pay and prior authorization data from the second quarter of 2012 through the third quarter of 2013. The data is all derived from state sources.

The report is available in the Members Only section of the KHA website, www.kyha.com. Chief executive officers can obtain a user name and password from Ginger Dreyer at KHA (502-426-6220 or 800-945-4542 or via email at gdreyer@kyha.com). KHA encourages CEOs to share their facility's passwords with their staff at their discretion.

This week, reports showing readmissions trends were sent to to acute care hospital chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chief nursing officers and quality directors.

This analysis is designed to provide hospitals with a comparative review, over time, of the readmissions measures that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is currently/will be evaluating under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. The analysis also provides an in-depth review of actual and projected performance under the Readmissions Reduction Program.

Similar to the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program analysis, this update includes a new report called Performance Scorecard. This report provides a detailed review of hospital performance and the factors that drive performance under the Readmissions Reduction Program for federal fiscal years (FFYs) 2013, 2014 and 2015 using actual and estimated data. Using performance and revenue data critical to the Program, the report uses a series of tables and graphs to highlight exposure areas and the conditions that drive the payment penalties by program year. Each section of the report includes text to describe what is displayed, whether it is actual or estimated, how the data relates to the program and why it is important....

Last week, KHA e-mailed the most recent Pay for Performance (P4P) quality reports to hospitals. The Quarterly Update is based on Hospital Compare’s Quarterly (third quarter 2013) Data Release. 

This analysis is designed to provide hospitals with a comparative review over time of the quality data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and published on the Hospital Compare website. All of the sources, time periods and measures analyzed are defined in the the included description document. Hospital performance, U.S. average, and U.S. top 10 performance performance are from the quarterly updates to the CMS Hospital Compare quality database from December 2010 (fourth quarter 2010) through December 2013 (fourth quarter 2013) when available. The measure collection dates related to these database updates are listed directly on the report. 

Please note that this analysis evaluates performance scores for ALL hospitals included in CMS' Hospital Compare database regardless of estimated Value-Based...