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

RESEARCH LETTER Association BetweenHospital Characteristics and Performance on theNewHospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program’s Surgical Site InfectionMeasures 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 bepenalized significantlymoreoften in theHACprogramthan lower-qualityhospitals.1 In federal fiscalyear2016, surgical site infection (SSI) outcome measures for colon surgery and abdominal hysterectomywill be incorporated into theHACprogram. Our objective was to evaluate the association between hospital characteristics and SSI measures. Methods | The SSI scores from Centers for Medicare andMedicaid 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, andadvanced services) and SSI outcomeswas assessed using a Cochran-Armitage test for