Home Health Quality ImprovementNational Campaign e-Bulletin
Best Practice Intervention PackageAdditional ResourcesWeb SiteCampaign SupportersTips of the Weeke-Bulletin Archive
 
 

July 2007 e-Bulletin

Participating Home Health Agencies

HHQI National Campaign Teleconference
The HHQI National Campaign Strategies for Success teleconference was conducted June 20, 2007. Speakers included representation from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, NAHC, the Kansas LANE, Girling Health Care, and the VNAA. Dr. Timothy Gutshall, an emergency room physician and Clinical Coordinator for the Iowa Medical Foundation, and the HHQI Campaign Premier Agency, Complete Home Care, offered personal accounts. Three polling questions were posed during the call. Here are the responses:

Question 1
“Is your agency actively using the campaign materials such as the Best Practice Intervention Packages to reduce avoidable hospitalizations?” Yes 74.5%
No 25.5%
Question 2
“Does your agency distribute the Best Practice Intervention Packages to your staff?” Yes 31.7%
No 68.3%
Question 3
“Would you like to have additional national teleconferences such as this teleconference to help support your efforts in the HHQI National Campaign?” Yes 84.0%
No 16.0%

The 70-minute audio recording of this call is posted at www.homehealthquality.org.

(top of page)
Best Practice Intervention Package
   

Best Practice Intervention Package: Teletriage

This package, Teletriage, is the second in the Simply Summer Series, which are similar and focus on the telehealth topic.

The Teletriage package will help agency leaders assess and evaluate their teletriage processes.

Two leadership tracks are offered: the Leadership Path for agencies that have limited understanding of the teletriage processes and the Leadership Highway for those agencies that have formal processes already in place for teletriage.

Tools included are teletriage references and documentation tools for breathing difficulty, falls/other injury and wound drainage/infection. A Routing of Phone Calls document is also included to assist agencies with examining potential issues within their organization with answering and routing of patient phone calls.

Care Provider tracks are for nurses, therapists, medical social workers and home health aides.

The Simply Summer Series will conclude in August with Telemonitoring, but the packages will continue through February 2008.

Fast Track

As usual, a Fast Track is included for home health agencies that have limited time for this particular topic.

(top of page)

  
Additional Resources
   
Previous Best Practice Intervention Packages

The June Best Practice Intervention Package (BPIP) topic focused on phone monitoring and frontloading visits.

The May BPIP focused on medication management.

April's BPIP focused on emergency care planning.

The BPIP for March focused on hospitalization risk assessment.

(top of page)

  
   

The HHQI Web site is updated weekly with additional information, tools and resources. Bookmark the Web site and visit it weekly. The Quick Links on the home page facilitates easy travel to important sites.

What's New?

Podcast: Reducing Avoidable Hospitalizations: Home Health and Disease Management
Take five minutes and listen to the audio recording of Dr. David Nash to hear the physician perspective on the role of home health in disease management and reducing avoidable hospitalizations. Dr. Nash is internationally recognized for his work in outcomes management, medical staff development, and quality-of-care improvement and his publications have appeared in more than 100 articles in major journals.

Phone Monitoring and Frontloading Visits BPIP Survey

Summary of Results
The survey results from the Phone Monitoring and Frontloading Visits BPIP are now available on the HHQI Web site.

The Best Practice Intervention Package Survey helps the HHQI team:

  • improve the packages
  • understand barriers to accessing the packages, etc.
  • know whether we are on target with the materials
  • recognize when there is a need to modify the materials.

Thanks to everyone who completed the survey. The next survey will be available July 2nd – July 13th and will focus on the Teletriage BPIP.

Please note: The time to take the survey has been expanded per the request of home health agencies. It is now available the same day the new package is released.

Home Health Agency of the Month

Yellowstone Visiting Nurse Service
Billings, MT

“The HHQI National Campaign provides Visiting Nurse Service with excellent tools to establish our goals, measure our progress, enhance our patient education, and ultimately, improve the medical outcome for the people who entrust their care to us.” - Theresa Habein, RN, Quality Assurance

For Physicians

Home Health Teletriage Tips for Physicians
What is the relationship between the home health care activity of teletriage and physicians? The Home Health Teletriage Tips for Physicians gives practical information about how patients and physicians benefit from effective teletriage. Go to the For Physicians page at www.homehealthquality.org.

(top of page)

  
   

The list of HHQI National Campaign Supporters is growing. Here is a random example from the list of supporters listed on the campaign Web site.

Consultants

  • Lynda Laff, Home Care Consultant, Laff Associates, SC
  • Linda Henslee, Comsultant, TX

Managed Care

  • Mary Kay Brown, Managed Care Case Manager, Health America/Advantra, PA
  • Michele Goboney, Director Clinical Services, Managed Care Systems, CA

Vendors

  • Andrea Easton, Referral Marketing Manager, Philips Lifeline, MA
  • Kim Wipf, RN, Solutions Manager, Cerner BeyondNow, MO

Individual Home Care Staff Members

  • Carrie Glenn, Director of Patient Care Services, Livingston Memorial VNA, CA
  • Anne Hull, Occupational Therapis, University of St. Augustine, FL
  • Juan Flores, QI Nurse, ASC Healthcare, TX

Trade Associations

  • Patricia Snyder, Executive Director, Nebraska Health Care Trade Association, NE

Multi-state Home Care Provider Organizations

  • Victoria Christian, VP Clinical Improvement, Catholic Health East, PA
  • Rachel Hawkins, Corporate Director of Education, Almost Family, KY

(top of page)

  
Tips of the Week
   

View the June 2007 Tips of the Week.

View the May 2007 Tips of the Week.

View the April 2007 Tips of the Week.

(top of page)

  
e-Bulletin Archive
   

View the June 2007 e-Bulletin.

View the May 2007 e-Bulletin.

View the April 2007 e-Bulletin.

(top of page)

  
   

 If you have technical problems with the e-Bulletin, please e-mail Russell Hartman.

  
 
This material was prepared by Quality Insights of Pennsylvania, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization Support Center for Home Health, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy. Publication number 8SOW-PA-HHQ07.535. App. 7/2/07.