Medical error reduction bills introduced in the Senate. On June 15, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduced his error reduction and patient safety improvement act. The bill creates two voluntary and confidential reporting systems—reporting of adverse events and close calls using uniform reporting standards and forms, and a surveillance system in which participating facilities agree to monitor, analyze and report adverse events and close calls. Funding for the reporting system and for a new center for quality improvement and patient safety would equal $50 million in FY 2001, increasing to $200 million by FY 2005. Sen. Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) introduced a similar quality improvement/ patient safety bill.
FY 2001 NIH appropriations.
In June the House of Representatives adopted its FY 2001 Labor-HHS appropriations bill; the measure includes a $1 billion increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health. The Senate version of the bill contains a $2.7 billion increase for NIH but secures the extra funds for NIH by cutting funding for several popular programs. The Senate is likely to delete those cuts but keep the $2.7 billion increase for NIH.
Worth noting.
HCFA has delayed the effective date of the new outpatient PPS system to August 1. The original deadline was July 1... President Clinton has directed the Medicare program to cover routine patient costs associated with all clinical trials... Efforts to enact a managed care reform bill remain stalled, despite Sen. Kennedy’s maneuver forcing Senators to vote on the House version of the bill.