The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) will begin their new payment and reimbursement policies for patients discharged on or after October 1, 2008. The new policy includes a list of several conditions identified by the National Quality Forum (NQF) referred to as “never events,” that the CMS will no longer provide reimbursement payments if these events occur. The events have been categorized into 6 groups: Surgical Events, Product or Device Events, Patient Protection Events, Care Management Events, Environment Events, and Criminal Events. The current NQF list has 3-6 serious reportable adverse events in each category, making the list a total of 28 “never events.” Every institution that provides health care wants to deliver excellent patient care, quality service, and achieve positive outcomes. However, not all things are preventable. A sure way to improve, minimize, or completely avoid these “never events” is to examine the external evidence in the medical literature and combine it with your clinical expertise to implement strategies and practices that will eliminate or nearly eradicate the occurrences of these events.
The library can assist in your efforts to provide quality care by creating subject guides, conducting searches of evidence-based practice, or providing current articles and updates relative to the topic of “never events.” In the next several years we will see a significant increase of published research, innovations, and practice guidelines pertaining to preventing “never events.” The library is committed to keeping abreast of these knowledge resources and making them available.
Filed under: never events, research assistance | Tagged: centers for medicare & medicaid, cms, medicaid, medicare, national quality forum, never event, never events, nqf, practice guidelines, subject guides
