State Reporting Requirements for Hospitals

Hospitals must report certain types of information to their state department of health and other state agencies. The specific requirements differ from state to state, and can change over time as well. What remains constant, however, is the need for efficient and accurate methods for meeting these reporting requirements.

To prepare for this Discussion research the statutory requirements for hospital reporting in your state, or another state of interest to you. The National Academy for State Health Policy report in this week's Learning Resources will provide a good start to your research, but you should do further exploration to fill out your understanding of the state reporting requirements by hospitals in your selected state.

With these requirements in mind, consider the following:

What data are needed to fulfill these reporting requirements?

Select a particular type of hospital, such as a small community hospital or a large urban facility within a multi-state hospital system, and identify challenges this institution might encounter in complying with these requirements.

Review the health information systems you have learned about so far in this course, and do further exploration, as needed, to identify systems that would help in capturing, processing, and providing the data required for those reports.

Post by Day 4 a response to the following:

Summarize the state's reporting requirements for hospitals.

Analyze challenges that these requirements might pose to your selected type of hospital.

Propose which hospital IT systems might be used to produce the data necessary for these reports. If multiple systems could be used, select which one you think is best and state why.

Briefly, describe at least one way in which these reporting requirements contribute to the public's health, and one way in which this reporting benefits the organization providing the data.