Data Management in Home Care: Using Data to Drive Acute Care Hospitalizations.

DATA ANALYSIS: and quality improvement activities in the home health industry are essential to achieving and maintaining the level of quality expected for each and every patient. Medicare-certified home health agencies have access to a wide variety of patient data and other quality indicators, which can form the foundation for proactive process improvement. This article provides a brief review of the available home health data, followed by two agency case studies demonstrating radically different approaches to using available data to improve their patient outcomes, including reducing avoidable hospitalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]