1.This Act may be cited as
the VA Hospital Quality Report Card
Act of 2006
.
2.The purpose of this Act is to establish the
Hospital Quality Report Card Initiative under title 38, United States Code, to
ensure that quality measures data for hospitals administered by the Secretary
of Veterans Affairs are readily available and accessible in order to—
(1)inform patients
and consumers about health care quality in such hospitals;
(2)assist Veterans
Affairs health care providers in identifying opportunities for quality
improvement and cost containment; and
(3)enhance the
understanding of policy makers and public officials of health care issues,
raise public awareness of hospital quality issues, and to help constituents of
such policy makers and officials identify quality health care options.
3.VA hospital quality
report card initiative
(a)Subchapter III of
chapter 17 of title 38, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the
following new section:
1730A.Hospital Quality
Report Card Initiative
(a)Not later than 18
months after the date of the enactment of the VA Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2006,
the Secretary shall establish and implement a Hospital Quality Report Card
Initiative (in this section referred to as the Initiative
) to
report on health care quality in VA hospitals.
(b)For purposes of
this section, the term VA hospital means a hospital administered
by the Secretary.
(c)(1)(A)Not less than 2 times
each year, the Secretary shall publish reports on VA hospital quality. Such
reports shall include quality measures data that allow for an assessment of
health care—
(i)effectiveness;
(ii)safety;
(iii)timeliness;
(iv)efficiency;
(v)patient-centeredness; and
(vi)equity.
(B)In collecting and reporting data as
provided for under subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall include VA hospital
information, as possible, relating to—
(i)staffing levels of nurses and other
health professionals, as appropriate;
(ii)rates of nosocomial
infections;
(iii)the volume of various procedures
performed;
(iv)hospital sanctions and other
violations;
(v)the quality of care for various
patient populations, including female, geriatric, disabled, rural, homeless,
mentally ill, and racial and ethnic minority populations;
(vi)the availability of emergency rooms,
intensive care units, maternity care, and specialty services;
(vii)the quality of care in various
hospital settings, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency, maternity, and
intensive care unit settings;
(viii)ongoing patient safety initiatives;
and
(ix)other measures determined appropriate
by the Secretary.
(C)(i)In reporting data as
provided for under subparagraph (A), the Secretary may risk adjust quality
measures to account for differences relating to—
(I)the characteristics of the reporting
VA hospital, such as licensed bed size, geography, and teaching hospital
status; and
(II)patient characteristics, such as
health status, severity of illness, and socioeconomic status.
(ii)If the Secretary reports data under
subparagraph (A) using risk-adjusted quality measures, the Secretary shall
establish procedures for making the unadjusted data available to the public in
a manner determined appropriate by the Secretary.
(D)Under the Initiative, the Secretary
may verify data reported under this paragraph to ensure accuracy and
validity.
(E)The Secretary shall disclose the
entire methodology for the reporting of data under this paragraph to all
relevant organizations and VA hospitals that are the subject of any such
information that is to be made available to the public prior to the public
disclosure of such information.
(F)(i)The Secretary shall
submit each report to the appropriate committees of Congress.
(ii)The Secretary shall ensure that
reports are made available under this section in an electronic format, in an
understandable manner with respect to various populations (including those with
low functional health literacy), and in a manner that allows health care
quality comparisons to be made with local hospitals or regional hospitals, as
appropriate.
(iii)The Secretary shall establish
procedures for making report findings available to the public, upon request, in
a non-electronic format, such as through a toll-free telephone number.
(G)The analytic methodologies and
limitations on data sources utilized by the Secretary to develop and
disseminate the comparative data under this section shall be identified and
acknowledged as part of the dissemination of such data, and include the
appropriate and inappropriate uses of such data.
(H)On at least an annual basis, the
Secretary shall compare quality measures data submitted by each VA hospital
with data submitted in the prior year or years by the same hospital in order to
identify and report actions that would lead to false or artificial improvements
in the hospital’s quality measurements.
(2)(A)The Secretary shall
develop and implement effective safeguards to protect against the unauthorized
use or disclosure of VA hospital data that is reported under this
section.
(B)The Secretary shall develop and
implement effective safeguards to protect against the dissemination of
inconsistent, incomplete, invalid, inaccurate, or subjective VA hospital
data.
(C)The Secretary shall ensure that
identifiable patient data shall not be released to the public.
(d)(1)The Secretary shall
evaluate and periodically submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of
the Initiative, including the effectiveness of the Initiative in meeting the
purpose described in section 2 of the VA
Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2006. The Secretary shall
make such reports available to the public.
(2)The Secretary shall use the outcomes
from the evaluation conducted pursuant to paragraph (1) to increase the
usefulness of the Initiative.
(e)There are
authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section such sums as may be
necessary for each of fiscal years 2007 through
2016.
.
(b)The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 17,
United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section
1730 the following new item:
1730A. Hospital Quality Report
Card
Initiative.
.