The “Improving Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (IMPACT Act) requires the Secretary to specify resource use measures, on which post-acute care (PAC) providers, including skilled nursing facilities, are required to submit necessary data specified by the Secretary. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has contracted with Acumen, LLC and RTI International to develop the SNF HAI measure under the Quality Measure & Assessment Instrument Development & Maintenance & QRP contract (75FCMC18D0015, Task Order 75FCMC19F0003).

Preventing and reducing HAIs is crucial for delivering safe and high-quality care across health care systems and has been a priority objective across federal, state, and local levels. The SNF HAI measure fulfills the Making Care Safer by Reducing Harm Caused in the Delivery of Care within CMS’s Meaningful Measure framework. The purpose of the SNFHAI measure is to estimate the risk-standardized rate of HAIs that are required during SNF care and result in hospitalization in one composite score. Unlike other HAI measures that target specific infections, this measure targets all HAIs that are serious enough to require transfer to an acute care hospital. It is important to recognize that HAIs in SNFs are not considered “never-events.” The goal of this risk-adjusted measure is to identify SNFs that have notably higher rates of HAIs acquired during SNF care, when compared to their peers and to the national average HAI rate.

A report was published in February 2021 that presents the SNF HAI technical measure specifications.

Stay the course, stay well, mask up, get vaccinated, and stay tuned!