Consumers can now access quality data about home health agencies across the country via the Home Health Compare Web site, the latest tool in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) effort to report provider quality data and use QIOs to improve care
The home health quality initiative follows the nursing home quality initiative, launched nationally in November 2002, and uses data HHAs already report to CMS to compare agencies in individual states. CMS and home health industry groups used 11 quality measures from the 41 outcome measures HHAs already reported through the Outcomes and Assessment Information Set (OASIS).
Advertisements with a sample of the quality data available on Home Health Compare ran November 4 in 69 newspapers across the country, CMS said at a press briefing. The ads, designed to alert consumers to information available on the Web site, listed three of the 11 quality measures CMS is using to compare home health agencies to others in their respective states.
The home health quality initiative began as an eight-state pilot project in February, and CMS said half the HHAs in those states sought assistance from QIOs in improving care.
In advance of the CMS press briefing, AHQA hosted a conference call along with representatives of national home health organizations and consumer groups. About a dozen reporters from across the country called in to the briefing, and many quoted statements said at the briefing by AHQA Executive Vice President David Schulke and others in their news reports.
The briefing resulted in coverage of the QIO role in the HHQI, specifically the success QIOs have had in training home health agencies, in a number of publications, including: Modern Healthcare, BNA’s Daily Health Care Policy Report, Washington Healthbeat, Inside CMS, and others.
“We believe the combination of public reporting and technical assistance from the QIOs will motivate and support providers in their efforts to improve care,” Schulke said in a statement during the CMS briefing that was carried favorably in the Modern Healthcare article.
AHQA’s Communications’ Department organized the conference call briefing, and produced a number of materials designed to increase awareness of the QIO role in the initiative and tell of “success stories” reported by home health agencies that have worked with QIOs.
Across the country, a number of QIOs used ride-alongs and news conferences to successfully attract media attention to the initiative in their states.
For more info, www.ahqa.org/briefing