OASIS Alert

Understanding these reports will help you come up for air.

Many agencies are still trying to figure out how to make the leap from thinking about outcomes to actually influencing them. But to do that, you need to understand your agency's data.

If you want to navigate your agency's data, but don't know which report to use for which purpose, check out these explanations shared by Jennifer Markley, home health project manager with the Texas Medical Foundation. Your quality improvement organization is eager to provide tools to help you improve your patient care.

The Adverse Outcome Event Report is an outcome-based quality monitoring (OBQM) report used in monitoring adverse events at a glance. The report is an important tool for investigating the event to determine if it may have been avoidable with appropriate care. Typically, all adverse events are reviewed by the agency on an ongoing and timely basis as a quality monitoring activity.

The Case Mix Report describes characteristics, disabilities and diseases of patients admitted to the agency in a specific period of time. This report is compared with a national case mix reference sample and the agency's own case mix during the preceding and current year. The case mix report is used in influencing many decisions an agency makes about patient care delivery, including allocation of staffing resources. This information can also be of value in marketing activities and in striking a balance between managed care patients and non managed care. This is an outcome based quality improvement report.

The Outcome Reports, descriptive and risk-adjusted, are the reports primarily used in OBQI. There are 30 outcomes displayed in the risk-adjusted section of the report, and 11 outcomes that appear in the descriptive section. The agency's current outcome data is compared to the agency's prior year performance and the national reference. This information is presented in a bar graph format. Outcomes that are statistically significant when compared to the national reference will be asterisked. The asterisked outcomes may be either favorable or unfavorable. These Outcome Reports are the primary reports used in selecting a target outcome for OBQI.

The Tally Report is used in OBQI to assist in selecting patients for your process of care investigation. This report identifies the specific patients that were identified as improved or did not improve for each target outcome.
 
Editor's Note: For more information of quality improvement, go to www.tmf.org/homehealth.