Greater nurse staffing may lower hospital readmissions

摘要

Having higher nurse staffing levels is associated with a better chance of avoiding federal monetary penalties for excessive readmission rates, say researchers whose study appeared in the October issue of Health Affairs. In October 2012, under provisions in the Affordable Care Act, the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began implementingthe Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. Under this plan, the CMS lowers base diagnosis-related group payments by up to 1% for hospitals with excess 30-day readmissions for Medicare patients who initially presented with acute myocar-dial infarction, heart failure, or pneumonia. The program hopes to use these financial penalties to ultimately reduce the estimated $15 billion Medicare spends each year on preventable readmissions. Forfiscal year 2013, penalties were estimated to have reduced CMS payments to hospitals by 0.3%, saving about $280 million.