Hospitals with nursing homes and hospital-based skilled nursing facilities should be on the lookout for a CMS initiative that will create -- and publish -- facility-specific quality scores, the AHA says.

In a Regulatory Advisory for AHA members issued late Oct. 14 (see http://www.aha.org under "What's New"), the AHA said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services planned starting that day to?provide facilities with their scores. Each facility has until?Oct. 22?to review the data, detect errors and notify CMS, AHA said.

"Beginning in mid-November, CMS will make this information available to the general public by publishing the quality measurement scores online at Nursing Home Compare, www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/home.asp." AHA noted.?Also in November, scores for the 50 largest nursing homes in each state will be published in at least one newspaper in the state, informing consumers of the NHQI and that data is available to assist them in making decisions on nursing home care. The post-acute facility reports released at this time will be based on data from January through June 2002."

AHA's advisory said CMS created measures by working with the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA).

"The AHA consulted with CMS only on the determination of post-acute care measures," the advisory said. "We will continue to share our concerns, however, that distinct treatment patterns of hospital-based SNFs should be recognized in the design of the quality measurement tool, thus assuring fair reporting that accurately depicts the quality of care. While CMS works to resolve other NHQI data and reporting issues, the AHA will continue to seek improvements in the post-acute measures."