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Beginning in January 2002, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin a five-state demonstration to identify, collect and publish nursing home quality information in Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington. The quality measures identified will be recognized and accepted by consumers, clinicians and healthcare providers. CMS will begin publishing the information in April 2002 to help make people aware of how performance differs across nursing homes. The information will be available online at www.medicare.gov and will be promoted through local Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs), formerly known as Medicare's Peer Review Organizations.

Following the pilot project, CMS will refine and expand the initiative to include risk-adjusted quality information from nursing homes in every state. The national project is scheduled to begin in October 2002. In addition, the QIOs will actively help people to better use the quality performance data by making sure that their interests and priorities are reflected in these new efforts to improve the quality of care.

"People covered by Medicare and Medicaid have the power to choose the best care to meet their individual needs, but they have to have more reliable information to choose quality care," Secretary Thompson said. "Our efforts today will help beneficiaries all across the country to compare the performance of their local nursing homes, and will provide the recognition that high-quality nursing homes deserve."

Over the next several years, CMS will work to develop and publish similar, meaningful consumer information for home health agencies, and eventually hospitals and other types of providers. This information will give beneficiaries, their families and their physicians the information they need to make informed choices of their providers.

CMS Administrator Tom Scully also announced that CMS and the National Quality Forum (NQF), a voluntary, standard-setting organization representing public and private purchasers, consumers, providers and researchers, will conduct hearings across the nation to solicit advice and comments from consumers, advocacy groups, healthcare purchasers, payors, providers and others that are interested in this and other programs in our national quality initiative.

"A modern healthcare system must recognize that our nation's disabled and senior citizens demand and deserve an effective voice in their own healthcare decisions," Administrator Scully said. "Better information on quality will help to give people who rely on Medicare and Medicaid that power."

Secretary Thompson also renewed his call for Congress to modernize and strengthen Medicare, consistent with President Bush's principles for Medicare reform. These principles include a prescription drug benefit, improved preventive benefits and greater flexibility for Medicare to create incentives for providing high-quality, error-free care to beneficiaries.

"The best way to raise the quality of care in Medicare is to modernize and strengthen the program so that seniors can get high-quality care both in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare and in private health plans," Secretary Thompson said. "President Bush and I are committed to working with Congress on a bipartisan basis to ensure that Medicare keeps its promise not only to today's seniors but also the seniors of tomorrow."

For the five-state pilot project, CMS has worked with NQF to identify 11 risk-adjusted quality measures that have broad support for use by beneficiaries. These include seven measures of chronic care quality (physical restraints, pressure sores, weight loss, infections, pain management, declines in activities of daily living, and use of anti-psychotic drugs without a psychiatric diagnosis), and four measures of post-acute care quality (managing delirium, pain management, improvement in walking and re-hospitalizations).

The new consumer information will expand and strengthen CMS' existing beneficiary-oriented comparison tools -- including "Medicare Health Plan Compare," "Nursing Home Compare" and "Dialysis Facility Compare" which are all on the Web at www.medicare.gov. The information is also available at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

As of Oct. 15, 2001, beneficiaries are now able to receive information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through the 1-800-MEDICARE toll-free phone service and CMS began a $30 million education and advertising campaign to inform seniors and people with disabilities about the choices available to them in the Medicare program. CMS received an average of 34,000 calls a day during the first week of November, an 82 percent increase for the same week last year.

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