Association Between Hospital Characteristics and Performance on the New Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program’s Surgical Site Infection Measures

RESEARCH LETTER Association Between Hospital Characteristics and Performance on the New Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program’s Surgical Site Infection Measures The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services HospitalAcquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program implemented financial penalties for poorly performing hospitals in federal fiscal year 2015. However, higher-quality hospitals appear to be penalized significantly more often in the HAC program than lower-quality hospitals.1 In federal fiscal year 2016, surgical site infection (SSI) outcome measures for colon surgery and abdominal hysterectomy will be incorporated into the HAC program. Our objective was to evaluate the association between hospital characteristics and SSI measures. Methods | The SSI scores from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Compare were merged with the fiscal year 2015 Medicare Impact File and the 2014 American Hospital Association Annual Survey data. The association between hospital quality summary score1 (hospital characteristics including size, accreditations, and advanced services) and SSI outcomes was assessed using a Cochran-Armitage test for