The National Quality Forum Aims to Improve Home Health Care
By Richard Shank
The National Quality Forum (NQF) has endorsed 20 new measures to help improve the quality of home health care.
Over seven million people receive professional health care in their home each year after they are discharged from hospitals. A large proportion of these individuals are older adults. In 2007, over $57 billion dollars was spent on in-home professional health care, yet the quality is still lacking.
The measures endorsed by NQF focus on eight areas of home health care: timely care; patient and caregiver education; preventative services; pain intervention and assessment; improvement and assessment of clinical symptoms; improvement in functional status; assessment of need for emergency care or hospitalization; and patient experience of care. The NQF also endorses the use of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey as a measure of routine quality control.
The NQF has recently opened up their measurements for public comment. To access their consensus statement and leave comments, visit their website at: http://www.qualityforum.org
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