Home Health Quality Initiative: What It Means for Nurses

Nevada RNformation, May 2004 by Boucher, Kristen T

In November of 2003, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gave nursing professionals access to a powerful new Internet tool. Home Health Compare now provides information about the quality of care provided at every Medicare-certified home health agency nationwide.

Available at www.medicare.gov. Home Health Compare allows viewers to search for agencies by county, zip code or name and then to see agency contact information, services offered and the results on 11 quality measures. The measures track indicators such as the percentage of patients who get better at dressing themselves, at moving around with pain, or taking their oral medicines. Measures for multiple agencies can be viewed in a single graph form to better illustrate differences. State and national averages for these same measures are also given, providing an even better context for assessing the figures.

The new information is just part of a larger effort by CMS called the Home Health Quality Initiative (HHQI). The initiative's goal is not to only provide public information about the care provided by home health agencies but also to improve the quality of home health care. State quality improvement organizations (QIOs), which are funded by CMS, are now offering free assistance to interested agencies. Healthlnsight, the QIO representing Nevada and Utah, is already working with most of the state's agencies.

What does the initiative mean for Nevada's nurses? Nurses who work as hospital discharge planners can now share this resource with patients and their families. Together with advice from professionals and the recommendations of family and friends, Home Health Compare should help make decisions easier.

Nurses who work in clinics or physicians' offices and nurse practitioners may find the site useful as well. This group often works closely with physicians in managing the care of chronically ill patients. May times these are the patients who might benefit most from the skilled nursing, occupational therapy or physical therapy services offered through home health care. Nurses frequently are asked to assist such patients in obtaining information about available services within their community.

Finally, home health nurses may be affected directly by the initiative through HHQI quality improvement projects already being implemented in their agencies. Those who are not may be in the future, as this opportunity continues to be extended and agencies are still being welcomed into the project.

To learn more about the initiative and the free resources being made available, nurses and others interested can contact Kristen Boucher by phone at (702) 933-7314 or by email at kboucher@healthinsight.org.

by Kristen T. Boucher, BSN, RN, CMC

Communications Coordinator, HealthInsight