"CMS' Progress Toward Implementing Value-Based Purchasing"

Thomas Valuck, MD, MHSA, JD
Medical Officer and Senior Advisor
Center for Medicare Management
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Baltimore, MD

Thomas Valuck, MD, MHSA, JD, is Medical Officer and Senior Advisor in the Center for Medicare Management (CMM) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Dr. Valuck advises CMS leadership on policy issues related to Medicare’s payment systems and quality initiatives, particularly pay-for-performance. In his presentation, Dr. Valuck provided an overview of the program’s goals and the Hospital-Acquired Conditions Payment Provision and Present on Admission Indicator Reporting initiatives.

"Measuring Healthcare-associated Infections"

Teresa Horan, MPH
NHSN Team Leader
Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Atlanta, GA

Teresa Horan, MPH, is the team leader for the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through NHSN, Ms. Horan directs the expansion of the scope of surveillance to include healthcare delivery venues beyond the hospital and adherence to proven patient care practices that prevent infectious and noninfectious complications. Ms. Horan’s presentation provided an overview of the current methods and challenges associated with measuring HAI, including case definitions, metrics, and methods of case finding.

R. Adams Dudley, MD, MBA
Associate Professor
University of California, San Francisco, CA

R.A. Dudley

R. Adams Dudley, MD, MBA, is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Policy at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Dudley’s major research interests include developing measures of quality and efficiency of care, assessing the impact of value-based purchasing by employers and health plans, and the consumer role in value-based purchasing. His presentation focused on the utility of incentives in to improve quality of care and the specific challenges surrounding financial and reputational incentives for HAI reduction, including the difficulties associated with HAI measurement.

"Creating an Environment for Learning, Innovation
and Successful Implementation in Organizations"

Ingrid Nembhard, PhD, MS
Assistant Professor of Public Health and Management
Yale University School of Public Health, New Haven, CT

Ingrid Nembhard, PhD, MS, is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and Management at Yale University School of Public Health, Division of Health Policy and Administration, and at Yale School of Management. Dr. Nembhard’s research focuses on organizational learning in health care, with an emphasis on the effects of intra- and inter-organizational relationships, leadership, team learning strategies and project management on quality improvement and clinical outcomes. In her presentation, Dr. Nembhard discussed the challenges to organizational learning, including staff resistance, intergroup relations, leader-workforce interactions, performance measurement and control systems, and resource constraints, and provided several strategies for success: frame as a learning challenge, create learning opportunities for staff, involve frontline staff, encourage leadership that facilitates, and measure and reward effort.

"Other Payer and Provider Responses to the CMS HAI Rule"

Sherry Glied, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Health Policy and Management
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY

Sherry Glied, PhD, is Professor and Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Glied’s presentation focused on the likely reactions of hospitals and payers to the CMS changes to HAI reimbursement, including whether other payers will adopt the CMS rule, whether hospitals will recoup by changing coding behaviors, patient selection, or discharge decisions, and whether the policy will achieve its intended effect.