The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an extension of the deadline for 2017 First Quarter NHSN reporting to Monday, July 31, 2017, at 11:59 p.m. PT. The extension will allow facilities the opportunity to ensure data are complete and accurate in accordance with ESRD QIP reporting policy.

To read the full announcement, please click here.

The current ESRD QIP measure set is not designed to measure the quality of care provided to patients with acute kidney injuries (AKI). CMS will use only ESRD patient data to calculate the NHSN Bloodstream Infection (BSI) clinical measure, NHSN Dialysis Event reporting measure, or any other measure in the ESRD QIP for Payment Year (PY) 2019; AKI patient data will not be included in the calculations.

However, facilities are encouraged to consider reporting AKI patients on a voluntary basis for internal quality improvement efforts and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) public health surveillance purposes. Please use the following guidelines to ensure AKI patient data are excluded from QIP scoring purposes for Calendar Year (CY) 2017 NHSN BSI data.

• Adding and Editing Dialysis Positive Blood Culture Events to Indicate an Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) Patient: Instructions for Calendar Year 2017
• Editing Denominators for Dialysis Event Surveillance to Remove Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) Patient Counts: Instructions for Calendar Year 2017

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the extension, please contact the CMS ESRD QIP team at esrdqip@cms.hhs.gov with “AKI” in the subject line.

If you have questions regarding how to remove patients with AKI from data reported to NHSN, please contact the NHSN helpdesk at NHSN@cdc.gov with “Dialysis” in the subject line.