Using Harm-Based Weights for the AHRQ Patient Safety for Selected Indicators Composite (PSI-90): Does It Affect Assessment of Hospital Performance and Financial Penalties in Veterans Health Administration Hospitals?

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether hospital profiles for public reporting and pay-for-performance, measured by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety for Selected Indicators (PSI-90) composite measure, were affected by using the recently developed harm-based weights.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: Retrospective analysis of 2012-2014 data from the Veterans Health Administration (VA).

STUDY DESIGN: The AHRQ PSI software (v5.0) was applied to obtain the original volume-based PSI-90 scores for 132 acute-care hospitals. We constructed a modified PSI-90 using the harm-based weights developed by AHRQ. We compared hospital profiles for public reporting and pay-for-performance between these two PSI-90s and assessed patterns in these changes.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The volume-based and the harm-based PSI-90s were strongly correlated (r = 0.67, p < .0001). The use of the harm-based PSI-90 had a relatively small impact on public reporting (i.e., 5 percent hospitals changed categorization), but it had a much larger impact on pay-for-performance (e.g., 15 percent of hospitals would have faced different financial penalties under the Medicare Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program). Because of changes in weights of specific PSIs, hospital profile changes occurred systematically.

CONCLUSIONS: Use of the harm-based weights in PSI-90 has the potential to significantly change payments under pay-for-performance programs. Policy makers should carefully develop transition plans for guiding hospitals through changes in any quality metrics used for pay-for-performance.