The agency last week awarded $110 million in contracts to 17 hospitals and health systems that operate Hospital Engagement Networks or HENs. That’s down from 26 HENS and a $218 million contract amount in the first three-year effort.
The HENs have agreed to aggressive new targets to reduce hospital-acquired conditions and readmissions.
Modern Healthcare reported that a criticism of the previous version of Partnership for Patients is that the CMS gave HENs and member hospitals the “flexibility to choose which process and outcome measures to report.” That decision has made comparisons between individual HENs across America difficult. The new contracts will require hospitals to track quality-and-safety progress with identical measures of performance.