IRVING, Texas
IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vizient, Inc. today applauds passage of the revised 21st Century Cures Act, which was signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday, December 13. The law is designed to spur biomedical innovations, improve processes and provide new funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The investments included in the law have the potential to markedly enhance health care delivery, and improve the lives of patients across the country. In total, it authorizes approximately $6.3 billion in new spending, and it includes provisions related to modernizing clinical trials, developing evidence, and improving patient access to therapies and information.
Additionally, it calls for modification of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) to account for the socioeconomic status (SES) of patients in a hospital’s community. This change in approach is something that Vizient, along with other hospital groups, has actively supported in recent years.
Research done by Vizient using their Clinical Data Base—a database populated by encounter data submitted by participating academic medical center and community hospital members—shows significant influence of SES over outcomes. For example, low-SES heart failure patients see a 12% higher readmission rate than for non-low SES patients. For behavioral health, readmissions are 11% higher for low-SES patients than non-low SES patients.
Hospitals that served the most vulnerable patients were at much higher risk for facing a penalty under the HRRP. With the improvements in this law, Academic medical centers and other hospitals that serve the most vulnerable patients will now be treated more fairly.
Vizient is the nation’s largest health care performance improvement company serving a diverse membership that includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health care delivery networks and non-acute health care providers.
About Vizient, Inc.
Vizient, Inc., the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country, provides innovative data-driven solutions, expertise and collaborative opportunities that lead to improved patient outcomes and lower costs. Vizient serves a diverse membership and customer base which includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and non-acute health care providers and represents almost $100 billion in annual purchasing volume. The Vizient brand identity represents the integration of VHA Inc., University HealthSystem Consortium and Novation, which combined in 2015, as well as the recently acquired MedAssets’ Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) segment, which includes Sg2. In 2016, Vizient received a World’s Most Ethical Company designation from the Ethisphere Institute. Vizient headquarters is based in Irving, Texas, with locations in Chicago and other cities across the United States. Please visit www.vizientinc.com as well as our newsroom, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages for more information about the company.
