Home health care is a covered benefit under Medicare Part A. To make sure that Medicare beneficiaries receive appropriate, high quality care, in 2000 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began requiring home health agencies to complete and submit health assessment information for their clients. The tool used to collect this data is called the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS).
The OASIS measures indicate how well patients at home perform activities of daily living such as bathing and taking their medicines. They also include data about physical status and use of hospitalization and emergency care. In 2005, the National Quality Forum, a private nonprofit group brought together expert stakeholders from the home health field to review and endorse a standardized set of performance measures. The 10 measures they recommended were then adopted by CMS for public reporting. Today, anyone can evaluate home health care and compare agencies on these quality measures at Home Health Compare
The quality measures are listed below along with links to more information, tools and resources on MedQIC, the national quality improvement website.
Three measures related to improvement in getting around:
Four measures related to meeting the patient’s activities of daily living:
- Percentage of patients whose bladder control improves (urinary incontinence)
- Percentage of patients who get better at bathing
- Percentage of patients who get better at taking their medicines correctly (oral medications)
- Percentage of patients who are short of breath less often (dyspnea)
One measure about after home health care ends:
Two measures related to medical emergencies: