One-third of U.S. h
Baltimore, Md. – More than 3,000 home health agencies nationwide voluntarily joined the 2007 Home Health Quality Improvement (HHQI) National Campaign within the first days of its launch in mid-January. These agencies represent over 30 percent of the 8,100 Medicare-certified home health agencies in the nation.
The 3,000+ agencies attained “Premier Participating Agency” status when they signed up in the first 36 hours of the campaign’s launch on January 11, 2007. Premier status agencies will be considered early adopters of the campaign’s goal and related intervention. However, regardless of this designation, all home health agencies involved with the campaign will receive tools and resources to help them reduce their rate of acute care hospitalization (ACH).
The campaign is a 12-month interdisciplinary approach to improving the quality of care provided to home health patients. By interdisciplinary, this means information and educational resources will be shared with home health staff at every level—from administrators and management to social workers, therapists and home health aides—to improve the quality of home health care. The ultimate goal of the campaign is for agencies that have signed on to the campaign to reduce ACH by a five percent relative improvement. An agency with a 20 percent ACH rate, for instance, would want to decrease that figure to 19 percent by March 2008.
“The response has been astounding,” said Barry Straube, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality. “It’s encouraging to see so many of the nation’s home health agencies committed to providing the right care to every person every time, which is CMS’ highest priority. We are also pleased that a broad array of stakeholders and home health agencies are committed to reducing avoidable hospitalizations that will improve patient satisfaction, outcomes, and save Medicare dollars.”
Leslie Norwalk, CMS Acting Administrator, commented in a recent issue of Caring, “Home health agencies working intensively with their QIOs to reduce avoidable hospitalizations demonstrated a 5.3 percent improvement that represents a potential cost savings to the Medicare Trust Fund of $121.2 million.” (Caring, January 2007)
This campaign is coordinated at the national level by Quality Insights of Pennsylvania, the lead Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for home health across the country. At the local or state level, state home health associations and QIOs have come together to serve as Local Area Networks of Excellence (LANEs), which will assist home health agencies in their goal to reduce avoidable hospitalizations. The LANEs will coordinate communication and improvement efforts with the agencies in their respective states. In addition, key home health stakeholders are providing campaign support at a national level.
The Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign was founded by key home health stakeholders: National Association for Home Care and Hospice; American Association for Homecare; Visiting Nurse Association of America; American Telemedicine Association; Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association; Care Transitions Program, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; American Occupational Therapy Association; American Physical Therapy Association; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; Gentiva Health Services; Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Center for Home Care Policy and Research, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and its contractors, the Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs); and The Remington Report. More information about the campaign can be found on the official Web site.