Affordable Care Act encourages health providers to report ‘hospital acquired conditions’

President Barack Obama"s 2008 campaign health care plan promised to "require providers to report preventable medical errors, and support hospital and physician practice improvement to prevent future errors."

The Affordable Care Act, which he signed in 2010, increases incentives and moves toward financial penalties to encourage health providers to report measures of health care costs and quality, the subject of a separate Obameter ruling.

We found the law stops short of "requiring" all "hospitals and providers" to do the kind of public reporting Obama promised. Rather, the law focuses primarily on Medicare providers — though that includes nearly all physicians —  and reporting that"s voluntary and incentive-based.

To measure this promise, we"re also asking, did the law include "preventable medical errors"?

Andrew Ryan, an assistant professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, points to a move toward "value-based purchasing" for some Medicare-paid acute-care hospitals. As part of value-based purchasing, such hospitals will have to measure "hospital acquired conditions," which he says are basically measures of hospital preventable errors.

Their pay will partly depend on their performance.

The category "hospital acquired conditions" goes beyond "hospital acquired infections" to include things such as objects left in the body after surgery, dangerous air bubbles introduced into the bloodstream and mismatched blood types. But the list doesn"t include all preventable medical errors.

Obama promised to "require providers to report preventable medical errors, and support hospital and physician practice improvement to prevent future errors." That"s essentially happening for acute-care hospitals that are paid by a specific Medicare program. But while there"s been progress under the Affordable Care Act, it stops short of a requiring all health care providers to participate. We rate this promise a Compromise.