As health care professionals, we all want to deliver high quality care to our patients. But sometimes our hard work can lead to myopia that prevents us from seeing the big picture.  To improve quality, we need to open our eyes to other viewpoints.

The new HHQI National Campaign is working to offer fresh insights into care delivery by promoting more effective communication among all health care providers. As a practicing physician and the Campaign’s Medical Director, I will share my diverse experience as a springboard for cross-setting quality improvement efforts. I also have the unique perspective of serving as Medical Director of Quality Insights of Pennsylvania’s Care Transitions project. The regional CMS initiative seeks to promote seamless transitions between the various care settings and improved communication between the various providers.

These experiences clearly have reinforced that patients don’t see care in silos like practitioners and providers do. Patients care about their own well-being, especially when it comes to unnecessary hospitalizations that create financial and emotional burdens for themselves and their families. With more than one in four home health patient episodes resulting in hospitalization, we need to center our quality improvement efforts on reducing this rate.

Home health quality improvement interventions can provide the tools to begin this process. The cornerstone of education in the new HHQI National Campaign is the quarterly release of new Best Practice Intervention Packages (BPIPs) starting January 28. Three of the six HHQI Campaign BPIPs will focus on cross-setting topics from the home health perspective. We will also work to open the lines of communication through MyHHQI, an online social network designed to foster communication between home health agencies, stakeholders and various health care settings.

These and other quality improvement resources can all be found at www.homehealthquality.org. Please consider joining the campaign today. Together, we can work to broaden our perspectives while focusing on what matters most: our patients.

David Wenner, DO, FAAFP
HHQI National Campaign Medical Director
WVMI & Quality Insights