title: The history of quality measurement in home health care.
abstract: Quality improvement is as central to home health care as to any other field of health care. With the mandated addition in 2000 of Outcome Assessment and Information Set (OASIS) and outcome-based quality improvement (OBQI), Medicare home health agencies entered a new era of documenting, tracking, and systematically improving quality. OBQI is augmented by the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) program, which is now entering the ninth in a series of work assignments, with the tenth scope in the planning stages. Evidence has shown that applied quality improvement methods can drive better outcomes using important metrics, such as acute care hospitalization. This article reviews key findings from the past 2 decades of home care quality improvement research and public policy advances, describes specific examples of local and regional programmatic approaches to quality improvement, and forecasts near-future trends in this vital arena of home health care.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Home Care Policy & Research, Visiting Nurse Service of New York, 1250 Broadway, New York, NY 10001, USA. robert.rosati@vnsny.org
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Rosati
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000145:classification / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011445:Prospective Payment System; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D020379:Risk Adjustment; D014481:United States