Administrative Memos

200204

FROM: Theodore O. Will, Chief Executive Officer
DATE: Apr 11, 2002
SUBJECT: The Impact of a Community-Acquired Pneumonia - Medicaid
IPRO CONTACTS:

Marcia Wallen-Brinson M.P.H., Project Leader, ext. 422

Enclosed you will find a statewide Medicaid report entitled The Impact of a Community-Acquired Pneumonia Quality Improvement Project in New York State. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to decrease the morbidity and mortality associated with community-acquired pneumonia in New York's Medicaid recipients.

In this report, samples representing baseline and impact time frames are compared. Improvements at impact have been achieved on four of the project's five quality indicators. The results at impact are:

Antibiotics within eight hours - 74.19%
Antibiotics consistent with current recommendations - 80.43%
Blood culture collection - 64.05%
Influenza screening or administration - 36.09%
PPV screening or administration - 35.78%

Although rates have increased since baseline, these results indicate that therapies related to the management of community-acquired pneumonia in New York's Medicaid population remain underutilized. In the future, IPRO will continue to work with acute-care hospitals and their patients to improve the quality of pneumonia care in New York State.

Should you have any questions about this Medicaid report or about IPRO's Pneumonia Project, please feel free to call one of the contacts listed above.