Following a recent U.S. News & World Report finding that small-volume hospitals pose a greater risk to patients, Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, along with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire and the University of Michigan, is trying to establish "minimum-volume standards," in an attempt to stop physicians from performing procedures they do infrequently, reports Baltimore Business Journal.
Here are four things to know:
1. There were 11,000 deaths from 2010 to 2012 could have been prevented if the patients who went to low-volume hospitals instead went to high-volume hospitals.
2. The three health systems created a list of 10 common procedures and saw a connection between frequency and negative outcomes.
3. Knee and hip replacements are on the list of procedures being targeted.
4. Maryland moving to pay-for-performance model could make the regulations more appealing to local health systems, Peter Pronovost, MD, director of Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, told Baltimore Business Journal.
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