Hospitals participating in a Medicare pay-for-performance demonstration project have been successful in lowering costs while reducing patient mortality and improving in other quality measures, officials said on Thursday, CQ HealthBeat reports. The project, a partnership between CMS and the hospital consortium Premier, involves 250 hospitals, which report on 30 clinical quality measures.

Hospitals participating in the project reported that the median hospital cost per patient decreased by $1,000 during the first three years, while the median mortality rate decreased by 1.87%. If all hospitals in the nation were to achieve the same cost and mortality improvements, hospital costs could be reduced by more than $4.5 billion annually, and about 70,000 deaths per year could be prevented, according to CMS.

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