One in three home care patients admitted to hospital

If you are like me, you want to eliminate trips to the hospital when issues can be managed at home or lower level care environments. That's why I was shocked to find out that 29% of home health care patients across the US are admitted to the hospital while under the care of a home health care agency.

According to Medicare, some patients may need to go into the hospital while they are getting home health care. In some cases--like incurable chronic medical conditions--going into the hospital may not be avoidable even with good home health care. However, some inpatient hospital care may be avoided if home health care staff is doing a good job at checking the patient's health condition at each visit (so problems are detected early).

With the national average of home care patients who had to be admitted to the hospital at 29%, you need to understand the differences between home health care providers in your area before you choose. The picture above is the search in my zip code. You can see the large differences between providers ranging for 14% to 60%.

To check out home health care agencies in your area for this specific measure go to Hospital Admissions from Home Care Agencies

To check out other Home Health Care Measures go to CMS Home Care Quality Measures

Have you had experiences with home health care agencies in your area? Share your experiences with other users by rating the home health care agency on WhereToFindCare.com. Your feedback is invaluable to others in your community searching for a homecare agency.

New Home Health Care Quality Comparison Search Released

Millions of people use home health care agencies across the US each year. Understanding the available quality information can help guide you toward making an informed decision about your choice of over 10,000 home health care providers for your recovery.

WhereToFindCare.com is proud to announce our new home health care quality pages. We believe anyone considering using a home health care agency or referring to home health care agencies should be knowledgeable about the quality measures, what they mean, and how they measure up next to competitors.

The new pages allow users to find information for home health care agencies right in their zip code as well as state and national averages.

Over the next several weeks, I'll post tips on what each measure means and how you can use your search to make your choices.

Have you had experiences with home health care agencies in your area? Share your experiences with other users by rating the home health care agency on WhereToFindCare.com. Your feedback is invaluable to others in your community searching for a homecare agency.

Does your home health care agency have good quality?

Depending on who you ask, you may get a definite "maybe". With over 10,000 home health care providers in the United States, the availability of quality home health care providers should not be hard to find.

We understand how difficult it can be for a consumer to understand the differences between providers, and that's why many patients and their families allow others to choose for them.

WhereToFindCare.com recognizes these dilemmas and has created a set of resources to help consumers, discharge planners, and even physicians to use quality information when comparing home health care agencies.

The new WhereToFindCare.com Home Health Care Quality pages are scheduled to be released in the next several days. Keep watching WhereToFindCare.com for further updates.

Have you had experiences with home health care agencies in your area? Share your experiences with other users by rating the home health care agency on WhereToFindCare.com. Your feedback is invaluable to others in your community searching for a home care agency.

Home Health Care Quality Measures - The Basics

No two home health care agencies are the same. Different staff, protocols, leadership, and patient population can yield different results. The CMS Quality Measures provide consumers with process and outcome measures not found anywhere else. And with over 9,500 home care agencies nationwide, choosing a home care agency selection based upon quality can simplify your decision.

The 12 quality measures that the federal government mandates from all participating home health agencies are grouped into the following areas:
1. Measures Related to Improvement in Getting Around
2. Measures about how Home Health Care ends
3. Measures Related to Meeting the Patient's Activities of Daily Living
4. Measures Related to Patient Medical Emergencies

Each of these areas has 2 to 4 specific measures. State and National Averages are calculated for each measure giving consumers the ability to compare between home health care agencies and the state and national averages or benchmarks.

WhereToFindCare.com displays the results for each measure on the home health agency's home page - Quality Tab - allowing consumers to see the results compared to national average. The WhereToFindCare.com Quality Score is the percentage of measures that were at or better than national average. This score allows an easy comparison between agencies and is found on the initial search results and on the quality tab of each provider.

Use the home health agencies search feature on WhereToFindCare.com to locate a quality home health care provider.