Monday, April 14, 2008 marked the beginning of the Summer 2008 Preview Period for your HCAHPS data.

The Preview Period for the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) and Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) initiatives is scheduled for April 14, 2008 through May 13, 2008.  Preview Reports will be accessed through the HQA Preview Reports link located in the Reports section of My QualityNet. For detailed instructions on how to retrieve your HQA preview report, please refer to the QualityNet Reports User's Guide

The Preview Report will reflect data for:

• The Clinical Process Measures discharge data accepted into the QIO Clinical Warehouse for 4th Quarter 2006 through 3rd Quarter 2007.
• The 30-day Mortality Outcome Measures data based on administrative data from hospitalized, fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries discharged between 3rd Quarter 2006 and 2nd Quarter 2007 for AMI, HF, and Pneumonia.
• The HCAHPS Measures based on hospital discharges from 4th Quarter 2006 through 3rd Quarter 2007.

To withhold publication of data, a provider must contact its QIO Hospital Public Reporting contact with its request to withhold and transmit a completed 'Request for Withholding Data from Public Reporting' form to that QIO contact no later than May 13, 2008 QIO COB. The QIOs have until 11:59 pm Central Time on May 15, 2008 to complete PRS data entry.

In order for their HCAHPS results to be publicly reported, hospitals must have an HQA Pledge on file. If a hospital chooses to suppress HCAHPS, then ALL of its HCAHPS results will be withheld for this public reporting (hospitals may not choose to suppress some HCAHPS results and publicly report others). If a hospital chooses to suppress HCAHPS results, it will receive a footnote in Hospital Compare indicating 'Survey results are not available for this reporting period'; however, state and national rates will display