Home Health Quality Improvement

HHQI National Campaign 2007 Goal

National Goal for Home Health Agencies

Patients receiving home health care will remain in their home setting and require fewer avoidable hospitalizations.

Measurement

The success of the campaign was measured by the average success of the participating home health agencies. OASIS data collected for each Medicare and Medicaid patient served by the participating agencies determined a participating agency’s average acute care hospitalization (ACH) rate. This publicly reported quality measure is reported on the Home Health Compare Web site.

The goal for the campaign was to reduce the average ACH rate across all campaign participant home health agencies by a 5% relative improvement from baseline to the end of the campaign. In other words, the amount of improvement for each agency was relative to its baseline; agencies with a higher baseline rate were expected to achieve greater improvements than agencies with lower baseline rates. The following table demonstrates examples of a 5% relative improvement from baseline for an individual home health agency:

Baseline rates were defined as the risk-adjusted agency-level rates from the 12-month period ending September 30, 2006 (which was posted to Home Health Compare in March 2007). The remeasurement rates will be the risk-adjusted agency-level rates from the 12-month period ending February 28, 2008 (which will be made available to campaign participants in mid-May 2008).

Individual agency reports were provided exclusively to registered participants. These reports included actual and risk-adjusted monthly acute care hospitalization (ACH) rates, along with some characteristics of hospitalized patients. National and statewide ACH benchmarking based on CMS data was also be provided monthly.