Home Health & Hospice Week

Reducing rehospitalization rates among your patients is good for them, good for your care quality — and good for your reputation.

Case in point: Clearfield Hospital Home Health in Pennsylvania is getting good press about its efforts to reduce acute care hospitalization for its patients, according to the Gant Daily newspaper. The agency has reduced its rate to 15 percent, 2 percent below national and state average, the newspaper says.

"Our agency’s primary mission is to help patients stay in their homes. Every hospitalization that occurs adversely affects their quality of life," director Karen Warfield said in the Daily. "With Medicare now penalizing hospitals for patients who are readmitted with diagnoses of heart failure, myocardial infarction and pneumonia, home health agencies can also play an important role in avoiding costly readmissions."

Using tools from the National Home Health Quality Improvement initiative, the team decided to incorporate a patient self-assessment questionnaire into its QI practices, the Daily reports. The questionnaire helps patients identify reasons they may be admitted.

Clearfield also uses disease-specific "Zone Tools" with green, yellow, and red zone indicators to help patients know when they should call the home health clinician for help.

"By preventing avoidable hospitalizations, we are improving the quality of life for our clients," Warfield said in the newspaper. "Each hospitalization results in a decrease in functional ability, and takes longer for clients to reach their pre-hospital level of independence. All of our home care clinicians are to be commended for their commitment to providing the highest quality of care for their patients."