Eli's Hospice Insider

Use this handy chart to direct your quality improvement initiatives.

Benchmarking gives you an opportunity to see how your hospice stacks up against others. Learning where you excel and where you need to improve is invaluable.

Carla Braveman, RN, MEd, CHCE, CEO of Big Bend Hospice in Tallahassee, Fla. shares this simple tool you can use to see if your hospice is on track or if you need to make some course corrections.

Patient/Family Outcomes Quality Measures

• Number of family members who report being prepared for the death

• Falls injury compared to benchmark

• Number of after hours calls

• Measures of Edmonton Symptom Assessment System items such as pain, tiredness, nausea. (See www.palliative.org/PC/ClinicalInfo/AssessmentTools/esas.pdf.)

• Results of your Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement (QAPI) -- the result of your care

• Measures of pain relief within hours

• Number of patients who died at site of choice

• Number of after hours calls not related to death or foley catheters

• Respiratory distress over desired threshold

• Percentage of patients active in bereavement

Staff Satisfaction/Joy at Work Measures

• Rate of staff turnover at less than ___ percent

• Rate of staff overtime

• Results of staff communication and supervision satisfaction surveys

• Rate of recruitment of new staff by current staff

• Number of visits per admission by discipline

• Number of visits per week

• Percentage of new hires reaching one year anniversary

• Competitiveness of benefits and salaries

• Rate of unplanned PTO use

• Rate of productivity

• Rate of overtime use

Financial Performance Measures

• Budget variance

• Fundraising as a percentage of revenue

• Closing financials and billing by the fifth of the month

• Average daily census of ___

• Margin with and without fundraising

• Aging of accounts receivable

• Number of days of cash on hand

• Cost per patient day of drugs, durable medical equipment, staff, and administration

• Charity care/write offs/bad debt as a percentage of budget

• Donations per patient day

• Volunteer cost savings/patients served

Patient/Family Satisfaction Measures

• Results of surveys and calls to measure family perception after death, after bereavement, and during care

• Percentage willing to recommend hospice to others

• Satisfaction with after hours calls

• Satisfaction with pain management

• Knowledge of what to do at time of death

• Knowledge of how to care for their loved one

• Satisfaction with symptom management

• Number of complaints regarding ___ over 1000 days of care