Hospitals are required to track adverse events as a condition of participation for Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement. The Common Formats are a standard system for reporting adverse events, near misses, unsafe conditions and harm from all causes. While hospitals are not required to use AHRQ’s Common Formats, CMS encourages hospitals to use them to more easily and accurately track adverse events and meet QAPI requirements.
CMS released the memo in response to an Office of the Inspector General suggestion that CMS and AHRQ provide information on the Common Formats to improve hospitals’ understanding of what events need to be reported to QAPI programs and their ability to track these events.
More Articles on Quality Reporting:
Patient Safety Tool: Guide to Developing Private Performance Reports
Obama’s 2014 Budget Includes $40M for Infection Surveillance
AHA Calls for Aligned Quality Reporting Processes
