Achieving Better Outcomes in a Managed Home Care Setting

Abstract

Managed care has brought the elements of cost containment, customer service, and outcomebased accountability to the definition of quality in the home care arena. Borrowed from the industrial sector, the aspects and measurements of quality have been influenced by health care market competition, National Committee on Quality Assurance standards, and total quality management and continuous quality management principles and practices. By combining these new influences with the earlier, more traditional quality measurement dimensions of structure, process, and outcome, home care management services and home care service organizations are meeting new challenges. Demonstrating quality performance through positive, desirable outcomes to the regulatory and accrediting entities is essential in maintaining a competitive position. Through the experience of one entrepreneurial endeavor, the authors demonstrate how performance improvement activities were used to improve overall structure, systems, and processes to achieve better outcomes in an integrated, multiservice home care delivery system.