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News Release

HHS RELEASES QUALITY DATA ABOUT HOME HEALTH AGENCIES
Eight-State Launch To Help Consumers Make Informed Health Decisions

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today released new, comparative quality data about home health agencies in eight states that can help consumers and their families choose the best home health agency for their needs. HHS plans to expand the home health project nationally later this year to further improve the quality of care provided by the nearly 7,000 Medicare--certified home health agencies nationwide.

"We are taking these first steps to provide consumers with the information they need to compare home health agencies based on the quality of care that they provide," Secretary Thompson said. "Seniors, people with disabilities and their families should consider this new data as one of many factors as they make a decision about choosing a home health agency. In addition, we know from our nursing home experience that publishing this kind of quality information creates real incentives for health care providers to further improve the quality of care that they provide to their patients."

The data released today involves 11 quality measures for home health agencies in eight states -- Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The data, along with other information about individual home health agencies, are available at Medicare's consumer Web site, http://www.medicare.gov, and through Medicare's help line, 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

On Friday, May 2, HHS' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will publish advertisements that include some of the quality data in 16 newspapers in the eight states.

The initiative is part of the Bush Administration's broader strategy to expand access to consumer quality information and bolster the quality of health care across the country. Last year, HHS issued quality data about Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes across the country and is working on developing quality measures for other health care providers.

"Improving the quality of care given by home health agencies is one of our top goals, and we are all in this together -- patients, families, agencies, nurses, employees and patient advocates," CMS Administrator Tom Scully said. "Our first step in public reporting was nursing homes and now we have launched this program for home health agencies. We plan to further expand our public education efforts to reach even more health care providers."

The 11 home health quality measures chosen for public reporting are among the 41 Outcomes and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) outcome measures that have been used by home health agencies since 1999. The OASIS is collected by home health agency staff at start of care, discharge or transfer, at follow up (60 day re-certification) and at resumption of care.

CMS consulted with HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as it identified appropriate quality measures to use for this initiative. The measures were chosen with input from measurement experts and a diverse group of home health professionals, clinicians and stakeholders. The quality measures include:

• four measures related to improvement in getting around (getting better at walking or moving around, getting in and out of bed; getting to and from the toilet and having less pain when moving around);
• four measures related to meeting basic daily needs (getting better at dressing, bathing and taking oral medicines correctly; staying the same and not getting worse at bathing);
• two measures related to medical emergencies (had to be admitted to the hospital and needed urgent, unplanned medical care); and
• one measure related to improvement in mental health (being confused less often).

As part of the initiative, Medicare's Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) will work with local home health agencies to improve the quality of care, as well as provide assistance to consumers in helping them better use the quality performance data. During the past three years, a pilot group of five QIOs successfully implemented a quality improvement program with home health agencies in their state. This program successfully piloted the quality improvement strategy called the Outcomes Based Quality Improvement (OBQI) System.

During the year, CMS will evaluate the program in order to refine and expand the initiative to include quality information for home health agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and some U.S. Territories later this year.

"As we did with the nursing home quality initiative, we'll be testing and tweaking the information to make sure that it is truly useful to consumers and helpful to home health agencies in their efforts to improve the care they are providing to their patients," Scully said.

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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.

Last Revised: May 1, 2003