MA Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN)

What is the MA Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN)

The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association (MHA) once again, is serving a Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN), as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Partnership for Patients (PfP) Campaign.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services awarded the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) a two-year HIIN contract (with an optional third year based on performance), to continue efforts to reduce all-cause inpatient harm by 20 percent and readmissions by 12 percent by 2018. An American Journal of Medical Quality article, written by HRET staff, explores the relationship between engagement in improvement activities and affected quality measures.

According to AHRQ, an estimated 125,000 fewer patients died in the hospital and approximately $28 billion in health care costs were saved as a result of reductions in Hospital Acquired Conditions. Although the precise causes of the decline in patient harm are not fully understood, the increase in safety occurred during a period of concerted attention by hospitals throughout the country to reduce adverse events, including the work of hospitals that participated the Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) and HEN 2.0.

The AHA HRET HEN 2.0 was in action from September 2015 to September 2016 to reduce hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent and readmissions by 20 percent. Over the one year project, HRET HEN 2.0 hospitals prevented roughly over 34,000 harms and have saved nearly $300 million in health care costs. The HEN 2.0 Final Report (HEN 1.0 Executive Summary is available below) is now available and we look forward to what is coming up in the HIIN project.

On May 1, 2017, the HIINs achieved the ambitious goal of recruiting 4,011 of the nation's acute care hospitals into the PfP. This represents the largest number of hospitals committed to achieving the bold aims since the inception of the PfP work in 2011.

As we continue our journey through 2019, the Hospital Improvement Innovation Networks and their 4,011+ constituent hospitals, including ten Massachusetts hospitals, will continue to work toward the achievement of a 20 percent decrease in overall patient harm and a 12 percent reduction in 30-day hospital readmissions. The establishment of these new goals dramatically raises the bar for improvements in patient safety in the acute care hospital setting with a higher number of acute inpatient hospitals than ever before. In partnership with each HIIN, CMS strives to continue strong momentum in sustaining the national engagement and momentum achieved through active collaboration with a wide variety of partners, including importantly, patients and their families. CMS believes that the work of the Hospital Improvement Innovation Networks, working as part of the Quality Improvement Organizations' work to improve patient safety and the quality of care in the Medicare program, will continue the great strides made in improving the care provided to beneficiaries.

The Partnership for Patients Campaign is a public-private partnership that intends to help improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for all Americans. The initiative assists hospitals with adopting new practices with the goal to reduce inpatient harm by 20 percent and readmissions by 12 percent by focusing on the following eleven targeted safety areas:

• Adverse Drug Events (ADE)
• Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI)
• Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI)
• Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI)
• Falls
• Pressure Ulcers
• Readmissions
• Sepsis
• Surgical Site Infection (SSI)
• Ventilator-Associated Event (VAE)
• Venous Thromboembolism (VTE)

Additional Topics:

• Airway Safety
• Culture of Safety
• Harm Events Related to Patient Handling
• Harm Events Related to Workplace Violence
• Health Care Disparities
• Iatrogenic Delirium
• Malnutrition
• Multi-drug Resistant Organisms (MDROs)
• Patient and Family Engagement
• Radiation Exposure

Thank you, again for your continued support and commitment to improve patient care at your hospital and others across our network.

HEN 1.0  Executive Summary - December 2013

During the HEN 1.0 phase of the project, the AHA/HRET HEN and SHAs worked with the hospitals and provided them with the education, tools and resources to drive improvement in the Partnership for Patients (PfP) clinical topic areas.

In addition to equipping the hospitals with these tangible skills, the participants also gained a network of peers who they engaged with in-person and/or virtually to share best practices, lessons learned, while re-energizing and motivating one another to continue the work. By building this sense of community via the network and providing them with the tools they needed to begin to think about how they can make a change, implement change and test, the AHA/HRET HEN was been able to achieve many quantitative and qualitative results.

HEN 1.0 's important work for our patients resulted in an estimated total of 69,072 patients who had a harm prevented and an estimated cost savings of $201,811,600.