Use the data to check your local agencies. Three Home Health Compare measures show improvement this quarter -- but three stubbornly refuse to budge. The updated Home Health Compare data posted in June show a continuing upward trend. Seven of the 10 publicly reported measures have improved in the last year. Three have gone up one percentage point and four have increased two percentage points -- including the three new winners: No Measurable Improvement The only three Home Health Compare outcome measures that have shown no im-provement this year are:
Challenge: State and regional differences continue to work against being able to see improvement in these measures, says clinical consultant Judy Adams with Charlotte, NC-based LarsonAllen. For example, for the December 2006 Home Health Compare, 11 of the 51 states improved their acute care hospitalization rate by 1 percentage point, while the remainder stayed the same or scored worse, she notes. This resulted in the national average staying the same.
In addition, clear regional differences exist, with significantly better scores on hospitalization in the northwest, mountain and western regions than in the northeast, southeast, central, midwest and southwest regions, Adams reports. But agencies can still use publicly reported data to compare their agency's results with those of their competitors, experts say.
Data Lag Postpones Viewing ,Results
August is the one-year anniversary of the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' intense nationwide initiative to reduce acute care hospitalization and emergent care, but Home Health Compare data will take awhile longer to show the results, experts predict.Stay tuned:
Keep in mind that Home Health Compare data is historical and does not reflect current results from agencies' efforts, Adams says. Data reported in June 2007 covered the period from January 2006 through December 2006. So some of it is well over a year old. Note: For more information about the Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign, go to www.homehealthquality.org.