LHCR / Home Health Newsletters

July 2007

hhqi best practice intervention packages

are you taking advantage of these tools?

The Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign is well underway.  As of June 1, over 5100 agencies nationwide have enrolled to participate in the campaign and 188 of those agencies are from Louisiana.  That’s 85.8% of Louisiana agencies! 

Each month a Best Practice Intervention Package is released and posted to the HHQI website at www.homehealthquality.org.  Twelve intervention packages will be released through February 2008.  The monthly schedule can be found on their website.  Each package contains educational tools and resources, guidelines and success stories that are designed to educate and create awareness of current strategies or best practices to reduce avoidable hospitalizations.   

Each intervention package is broken down into ‘tracks’.  There are tracks for  Leadership, Nursing, Therapy, Social Worker and Home Health Aides.  There is even a ‘Fast Track’ for those agencies who prefer a condensed message.  One thing is certain:  The Best Practice Intervention Packages have something for all home health agencies whether you are experienced with the best practice of the month or not.  

It is recommended that each agency’s lead for this campaign review the Best Practice Intervention Packages as they become available, discuss the material with staff and distribute each track appropriately.  Most of the intervention packages offer free CNE’s for RNs and the Aide Track could be used to meet their monthly education requirement. 

Agencies can be flexible in their use of the best practice packages.  There may be times when an agency does not feel the need to implement the suggested monthly interventions and that’s okay.  However, there are some activities we strongly encourage you to do each month. 

• Download the best practice intervention material each month and maintain them in a binder for future reference. 
• Encourage staff to visit the campaign website, listen to the WebEx and audio files to keep them informed of the latest best practice interventions as well as education opportunities. 
• Share the monthly ACH data reports with staff and track any trends developing.

Engaging staff in quality improvement efforts will benefit patient care and publicly reported outcomes while encouraging them to strive for perfection when it comes to rendering the right care for every person every time.

If you are one of the few agencies in Louisiana who hasn’t joined the Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign, it isn’t too late.  Visit www.homehealthquality.org and join today!  You’ll be glad you did!