Quality Improvement:
Process-Based Improvement Requirements Hit HHAs
Published on Tue May 04, 2010
OASIS C-based process measures are poised to catch up with you. Home care workers have a new guidebook for collecting and using OASIS C data to improve process quality, but don't expect it to clearly explain how smaller agencies can take advantage of quality improvement tools. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released the Process-Based Quality Improvement (PBQI) Manual (see related story, p. 161). The manual is the agency's fourth resource designed to help agencies meet CMS's quality improvement standards. The 47-page guidebook contains three chapters and two appendices that detail how process quality measures are reported and offer step-by-step recommendations for how agencies can use their findings to spot and remediate problems. Good news: "This manual should be very useful for agencies," says Rebecca Friedman Zuber, a regulatory consultant in Chicago. The resource includes factual information about how CMS will calculate the various measures, which will help agencies [...]