About the HHQI National Campaign
Home health patients desire and prefer to stay home whenever possible. Hospitalizations can unnecessarily create financial and emotional burdens for patients and their families, and can negatively impact the health care delivery system. Currently, more than one in four home health patient episodes will result in a hospitalization. Home health quality improvement interventions can be effective in reducing avoidable hospitalizations.
The Home Health Quality Improvement (HHQI) National Campaign 2007 sought to unite the home care community under the shared vision of reducing avoidable hospitalizations to improve patient quality of care.
The HHQI National Campaign utilized a 12-month multi-disciplinary approach to quality improvement that included key home health, hospital, and physician stakeholders.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in conjunction with the Home Health Quality Improvement Organization Support Center (HHQIOSC), launched the campaign on January 11, 2007 at a one-day invitation only summit in Baltimore, Md.
During the campaign, home health agency recruitment and communication occured locally through state and national home health associations and Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs). These groups partnered to serve as Local Area Networks for Excellence (LANEs).
The campaign provided home care agencies with free monthly best practice intervention packages that included educational tools and resources, guidelines, success stories and best practice education that were used to assist agencies in reducing avoidable hospitalizations. Best practice interventions to reduce avoidable hospitalizations can be compared to pieces of a puzzle. These puzzle pieces include the following:
- Implementing risk assessments
- Emergency care plans
- Fall prevention programs
- Front-loading visits
- Telehealth
- Teletriage
- Improving medication management
- Physician communication
Individual agency reports were provided exclusively to registered participants. These reports included actual and risk-adjusted monthly acute care hospitalization (ACH) rates, along with some characteristics of hospitalized patients. National and statewide ACH benchmarking based on CMS data was also be provided monthly.
The campaign champions were the visible leaders of the campaign, whose role was to work at both local and national levels to recruit agencies to participate and assist in uniting the health care community in a shared vision for improved quality of care for home care recipients.
