The concern that you raised about privacy and security is very much on people's minds.

The ultimate form of identification would be some kind of national patient identifier...

It was created in the pre-Internet age. It was created before the current use of information was ever imagined...

I promise only a very few.

Well, I'm going to go visit some of the bad ones as well.

I think it is a combination of using that authority effectively, and one of the most important things that we can do to be able to do that is to have Congress support the President's budget for survey and certification.

Thank you, Senator Blumenthal, for the opportunity to appear today to discuss CMS' efforts to improve patient safety in nursing home residents.

I'm going to ask that all of the written testimony be made a part of the record.

And by that recommendation, I assume you would also recommend that patient navigation be a reimbursable expense.

And that's what's necessary to permit and foster and promote patient navigation, which is really navigating for patients in what is now all too often a maze to them.

This is not pie in the sky stuff. This is real-life steps that can be taken, can achieve results, and I think it's a very powerful story.

And the team's report then goes to someone at CMS, or----

Well, I'd like you to give me a list of them because I'm going to go visit them.

I would be interested in that list of 150, and especially if any of them are in Connecticut.

There is the need in part because though we complain in the medical profession and in the health care industry a lot about HIPAA...

Quite honestly, those numbers of reductions in urinary tract infections and pneumonia and other accomplishments, measureable outcomes, are really extraordinarily impressive.

Enforcement against abuse or misuse also sends a signal about the importance of changing culture and changing standards.

I'm glad that you made that point. I should also say, because I've neglected it, that the record of this hearing is going to be made available to all of my colleagues on the Special Committee on Aging, and I hope that they will be…

It isn't an event. This hearing is not the end. It really is a journey.

In the 2013 legislative session, we will be asking the Connecticut legislature to raise the maximum fine to $10,000.

Would you support our attempt to change the Connecticut law from 1.9 to 2.3 in 2013, and 2.3 to 2.7 in 2014 in the next legislative session?

It is so critically important not only for saving dollars, which will be a priority going forward as the Affordable Care Act is implemented, but also for stopping the kinds of patient safety violations that are so negatively impactful on…

Patient safety certified. That would be a great qualification to spread more generally among health care providers and institutions.

the QAPI program requires a plan on the part of the skilled nursing facility.

It requires some of these necessary changes and considerations to be done through regulation.