Medicare’s Message
Clearly, the financial impacts of hospital quality, satisfaction, and safety are growing, conveying the message from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that quality matters, making a business case for quality. Our focus as leaders in hospital systems improvement will only sharpen as we see hospital payments increasingly affected as a direct consequence of our efforts. If that doesn’t get the attention of the finance department, what will?
Dr. Whitcomb is medical director of healthcare quality at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. He is a co-founder and past president of SHM. Email him at [email protected].