Wright Memorial Hospital Home Health was recently ranked in the highest percentile in the nation for home health agencies by HealthInsight, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care systems.
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HealthInsight ranked the 6,910 home health agencies in the nation according to data publicly reported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The rates reported by CMS were based on care provided between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. Agencies were also ranked based on their average performance rate for 12 quality measures.
WMH Home Health, of the nearly 7,000 agencies evaluated, ranked highest in the 98th percentile for 11 of the 12 CMS measures used for HealthInsight’s analysis. Measures included: improvement in patients taking oral medications independently, bathing themselves, and transferring themselves; improvement in pain, dyspnea (shortness of breath), urinary incontinence, ambulation/locomotion, and wound status; decreased hospitalization and emergency room visits; and ability to discharge patients home and remain in the community.
“We at Wright Memorial Hospital are pleased to have received this award for our home health services,” said Karen Cole, Wright Memorial Hospital chief executive officer. “The true recipients of this national recognition are the staff members who care for our patients. They truly embody the mission of our organization and I am humbled and proud of each and every one of them.”
Within the last year, WMH Home Health clinical staff members began using the Primaris (a non-profit health care consulting firm that also serves as Missouri’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization) Hospitalization and Emergent Care Start of Care (SOC) Risk Factor Assessment and Plan, which documents each patient’s risk for entering the hospital and outlines a plan of action.
According to Jacquelyn Walker, WMH Home Health clinical coordinator, staff members also began “frontloading” patient appointments, or arranging several visits within the first few weeks of patients’ return home and subsequently decreasing frequency as patients improve. Staff members also began calling home health patients each Friday to ensure their weekend needs were met. And last October, WMH Home Health was named the most improved home health agency during a Primaris national teleconference.
“I’m very proud of all the hard work our agency has done this year,” Ms. Walker said. “We plan to continue striving for excellence in patient home care in 2008.”