Hospitals that participate in Medicare ACOs, attest to meaningful use of EHRs or are part of the Bundled Payment for Care Initiative tend to perform better in CMS' Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, according to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Researchers examined 2,837 hospitals between 2008 and 2015, assessing participation in three voluntary programs: meaningful use of EHRs, the BPCI episode-based payment program and the Pioneer and Shared Savings ACO programs.
By 2015, only 56 hospitals were not participating in any of the programs. Meaningful use had the largest share of participants (97.5 percent), followed by ACO programs (18.3 percent) and BPCI (11.9 percent).
"Compared with hospitals that did not participate in any reforms, hospital participation in voluntary reforms was associated with greater reductions in readmissions in the HRRP," according to study authors. Additionally, participating in multiple reforms led to greater readmission reduction.
"Our findings lend support for Medicare's multipronged strategy to improve hospital quality and value," the authors concluded.