Dr. Daniel Brotman, GIM Associate Professor and Director of the Hospitalist Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, was interviewed for an article on the front page of the May 2008 issue of Hospitalist News, a supplement to Internal Medicine News. The subject of the article is the proposed efforts by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to focus on quality of care by adding further terms to Medicare hospital inpatient payment rules. In 2009, CMS will double the number of hospital- acquired conditions for which Medicare will not pay. Also, in addition to the 30 measures on which they now report, hospitals would have to report data on 43 new quality measures in order to receive the full 3% payment update for their services.

Dr. Brotman is quoted as applauding the focus on quality, but expressed concern that CMS may be trying to move too swiftly, without sufficient scrutiny of the new metrics and the meaning of their measurements. He also observes that one outcome of increasing emphasis on quality of care in hospitals will be growing investment in health care information technology.

Click to read the full text of the article with the accompanying photo of Dr. Brotman.