Review compares health agencies

Health-care consumers can find out a little more about their health-care providers as of today thanks to a nationwide home health quality review now under way.

Similar to a nursing home and hospital quality initiative launched exactly a year ago, the Home Health Quality Initiative by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gives consumers a new way to compare agencies and make care decisions for their loved ones.

In making the announcement Monday, the government released a performance assessment that showed Utah doing better than the national average in nine of the 11 home health quality measures, such as the number of patients who had to be readmitted to hospitals.

A comparative list of 30 of Utah's 45 home health agencies in three categories appears today in an advertisement announcing the initiative in the Deseret Morning News. A complete list of home health agencies can be found under "Home Health Compare" at www.medicare.gov.

"This provides for the first time usable data to consumers needing home health services," said Marc Bennett, president and CEO of HealthInsight, an independent quality improvement organization under contract with the federal government. "It's not a perfect statement about quality, but it will get better and will help people make educated decisions."

The government reports that about 15,600 Utahns covered by Medicare receive care at home.

Rick Hall, president-elect of the Utah Association for Home Health, said providers welcome the initiative. It will not only help raise the standard of care by showing where a provider can improve, "it will help people narrow their search and to work more closely with their physician in picking an agency."

Specific treatment information for nursing homes and home health has been lacking. Health-care advocates and critics say that performance reviews that are available can lag several months behind, leaving many families without much to go on as well as frustrating some providers who are trying to make good-faith efforts to improve.

This data will now allow consumers to compare care outcomes among providers, not just how well they are following policy.

Because choices are often made less than a day before a family member is discharged from a hospital, people will often simply choose the closest provider, said John Tudor, a medical doctor and vice chairman of HealthInsight's governing board.

The information will be updated every quarter for the previous 12 months and will show improvements, patient safety and overall service, Tudor said. Although some providers might be anxious about the ads and the public exposure, "this is a great before-and-after measure for people."

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E-MAIL: jthalman@desnews.com