Home Health & Hospice Week

Caregivers, patients and families targeted by new goals for 2006.

Home care providers accredited by JCAHO will have some new responsibilities on their plates starting next year.

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has added new requirements to the National Patient Safety Goals for 2006.

In addition to existing requirements such as implementing a fall reduction program and reducing the risk of infections, home care providers must "implement a standardized approach to 'hand off' communications" between a patient's caregivers. That includes an opportunity to ask and respond to questions, JCAHO says in the new requirement that falls under the caregiver communication goal.

Home care providers also must "encourage the active involvement of patients and their families in the patient's care," the Oakbrook Terrace, IL-based accrediting body instructs. That includes defining and communicating for patients and their families to report safety concerns, and encouraging them to do so.

JCAHO will make some changes to its prohibited abbreviations requirement under the NPSGs as well. Failure to substantially eliminate prohibited abbreviations in medication orders remains, at 27 percent, one of the most frequent non-compliance findings during Joint Commission surveys, the release says. More information is at www.jcaho.org/accredited+organizations/patient+safety/npsg.htm. The influential Medicare Advisory Payment Commission is losing its only home health representative. VNS of New York CEO Carol Rapheal's term expired this summer and no new home health repreplaced her on the commission that advises Congress on Medicare payment policy.

Three current MedPAC members, including former HCFA Administrator Nancy-Ann DeParle, have been reappointed to three-year terms. And two new members will come on board - Jennie Chin Hansen, a member of the AARP Board of Directors, and Nancy M. Kane, a faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health.

More information on the commissioners is at www.gao.gov/medpac/medpac05.pdf.
One of the durable medical equipment regional carriers has a new name.

CIGNA HealthCare Medicare Administration changed its name to CIGNA Government Services effective May 24. The new name better describes its business as a contractor for government health care programs, the company says.

The change will be phased in over time. DME suppliers will first notice the change on the company's Web site, publications, Interactive Voice Response system and telephone greeting. However, you may still receive correspondence under the company's old name over the next six months.   Public outcry may keep one North Carolina county's home health agency open. Lincoln County commissioners voted to close government-owned Lincoln County Home Health Agency with no warning to the HHA's staff or patients or the county's Home Health Advisory Board, reports the Charlotte Observer. The county has 18 other providers furnishing the same services, says commissioner Alex Patton.

But 1,200 people have signed a petition asking commissioners to reconsider and patients and [...]