Sponsor

The Patient Safety Task Force of the Department for Health and Human Services.

Mode of Administration

Chart abstraction using electronic data collection tool. Once medical records are selected from the sample, abstractors use explicit clinical criteria to examine the process of care, ascertain the occurrence of specific adverse events, determine that the event is an adverse event, and assess patient risk factors.

Survey Sample Design

Cross-sectional. The MPSMS data sources are a national random sample of medical records for all Medicare hospital discharges stratified by State and Medicare administrative data.

Primary Content

MPSMS inpatient medical records: a randomly-selected, nationwide subset of inpatient medical records from the Medicare Hospital Monitoring Program (HPMP), and Medicare Administrative Data.

The purpose of the system is to identify rates of adverse events in the Medicare population as expressed in medical records and administrative data. Adverse event categories include the following:

• Adverse events associated with the use of central vascular catheters (CVC);
• A set of adverse events associated with surgical procedures;
• A set of adverse events associated with joint revisions and replacements;
• Hospital-acquired, ventilator-associated pneumonia;
• Hospital-acquired blood stream infections;
• Adverse drug events that are hospital-associated or the cause of hospital admission (testing begins fall 2002).

The system also collects and examines patient risk factor information, such as demographics, principal diagnosis and its severity, and comorbid conditions and treatments.

Population Targeted

Medicare beneficiaries as required for the relevant measure.

Demographic Data

Age, race, gender.

Years Collected

2002.

Schedule

Data is collected monthly and aggregated annually.

Geographic Estimates

All States and Puerto Rico.

Contact Information

Agency homepage: http://www.cms.hhs.gov

Data system homepage: http://www.cms.hhs.gov

References

Fundamentals of Medicare Patient Safety Surveillance: Intent, Relevance, and Transparency. DR Hunt, N Verzier, SL Abend, C Lyder, LJ Jaser, N Safer, P Davern. Manuscript in preparation.