News in brief - Feb. 13, 2012

C. diff rates show first drop in decade - CMS redistributes residency slots of closed teaching hospitals

C. diff rates show first drop in decade

The rate of patients hospitalized with the Clostridium difficile infection fell for the first time after more than a decade of increases, according to data reported in January by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The improvement comes as more hospitals enact policies aimed at curbing unnecessary antibiotic prescribing.

Rates of C. diff, which causes severe diarrhea and is frequently a side effect of antibiotic use, nearly tripled from 47.6 per 100,000 hospital patients in 1996 to 114.6 per 100,000 in 2008. But that rate dropped 4.3% to 109.6 per 100,000 in 2009, the most recent year of data included in the report (www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb124.pdf).

The average age of hospital patients with C. diff is nearly 70, compared with the average of 48 for all hospital patients. Two-thirds of the patients with C. diff were on Medicare, and rates were higher among females and in hospitals in the Northeast, AHRQ said.

CMS redistributes residency slots of closed teaching hospitals

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced on Jan. 30 the first round of hospitals that will receive redistributed Medicare funding for residency positions from teaching hospitals that have closed.

In all, 1,357 graduate medical education slots will be redistributed to 88 hospitals in the next 18 months, according to CMS (www.cms.gov/AcuteInpatientPPS/06_dgme.asp).

Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Medicare funding for such positions was lost if a teaching hospital closed. But Section 5506 of the act now requires CMS to redirect the funding to other institutions. The rule applies to slots at all teaching hospitals that closed on or after March 23, 2008, and includes all future closings.

Applications for the first round of redistributed funding from hospitals that closed between March 23, 2008, and Aug. 3, 2010, were due to CMS in April 2011. Letters have been sent to notify the first 88 hospitals, CMS said.