News: Complying with quality program reporting cost more than $5 million and more than 100,000 personnel hours, study finds

According to a recent study from The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), data collection and reporting efforts to comply with CMS’ inpatient hospital quality reporting programs cost more than $5 million and took more than 100,000 personnel hours for a large hospital.

The survey authors interviewed clinical personnel at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in the first half of 2019. The study looked at quality reporting across all of 2018, according to JustCoding. The survey looked at 162 metrics, according to the report. Of those 162 unique metrics:

• 96 (59.3%) were claims-based
• 107 (66.0%) were outcome metrics
• 101 (62.3%) were related to patient safety

The study found that the claim-based metrics were the most resource-intensive of all the tested metrics. Overall, the preparation, conducting the interviews, interpreting the information, and reporting required 108,478 personnel hours, which cost the hospital more than $5 million. The investigation and reporting cost Johns Hopkins more than $600,000 in vendor fees, JustCoding reported.

Given the findings, the survey authors requested that policymakers consider reducing the number of metrics and switching interest to electronic metrics to “optimize resources spent in the overall pursuit of higher quality.”

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in JustCoding. To read the full study from JAMA, click here.