March 2008 e-Bulletin

Welcome to the Home Health QIOSC monthly e-Bulletin, your source for the latest updates in home health quality improvement. You may either browse the newsletter or use the icons at the top of the page to jump to a specific section.

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The Home Health Quality Improvement (HHQI) National Campaign Best Practice Intervention Packages (BPIPs) can now be accessed at www.medqic.org.

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There are no pending deliverable dates at this time.

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(Please note that all conference numbers now have a numerical ID)

CoP Call/WebEx:  Tuesday, March 18, 2008, 3:00 p.m. (ET)
1.877.260.8899; ID:  898684
Speaker:  Laurie Salmons, RN, BSN
Outcome Strategies
Topic:  Nursing assessment of surgical wounds, treatment plans, infection/wound deterioration scenarios and WOCN guidelines for wounds.

National HH QIO Call:  Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 3:00 p.m. (ET)
1.866.861.5389; ID: 898990

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Note:  For the remaining HHQIO e-bulletins we will be featuring home health agencies that have put best practices into action. Thanks to all the QIOs and home health agencies that have helped coordinate these tips and applications.

Agencies in Action

St Vincent’s Hospital Home Health Care is a hospital based, non-profit home care agency in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have an average daily census of about 300 patients. They are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year! Anita Biese, RN, MS, is their Clinical Nurse Specialist and shared with us how they have utilized the hospitalization risk assessment and patient emergency plan.

The hospital risk assessment (HRA) helps us to identify which patients are at risk for rehospitalizations and evaluate if additional services are needed. A recent post-audit at our agency showed that patients above the HRA threshold, those at the highest risk for hospitalization, were not rehospitalized while on our services. We attribute the success of keeping these patients from being rehospitalized to the use of appropriate disciplines and services based on the HRA score.

Also, it is important to evaluate the threshold for the HRA. Our staff thought that most of our patients would qualify as high risk for hospitalization. That was not true—only about 25 percent were at high risk.

The emergency care plan is kept in the admission package, but an in-depth review of the patient emergency plan occurs when the primary nurse on the second visit. During the first visit, patients are inundated with information and may become overwhelmed on admission to home care. Patients are able to understand the patient emergency plan much better on the second visit.

This is an excellent example of an agency incorporating best practice tools and evaluating the tools for applicability and effectiveness.

Thanks to Anita Biese, RN, MS, and St Vincent’s Hospital Home Health Care for your commitment to quality patient care!!

Tips of the Week

View the February Tips of the Week

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