Exploring Best Practices in Home Health Care

Abstract

This article summarizes publicly available research related to outcomes and best practices in skilled home health and other kinds of home-based care. As the population ages and the home health care sector grows, the home health community must address current deficiencies in care and expand the use of evidence-based strategies to improve the quality and efficiency of care. Many promising innovations in service delivery currently exist, a wide variety of which have been tested and evaluated in postacute and long-term care settings. Our review found that home health agencies are well positioned to improve patient outcomes through a variety of approaches, including care coordination, telehealth, and data-driven quality of care monitoring. For the most part, evaluations of these interventions show that they can improve patient outcomes and/or cost-effectiveness.