VNA Health Group Praises Staff for Top Ranking in Medicare's New Home Health Star Rankings
Red Bank, NJ (PRWEB) July 22, 2015 -- Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) Health Group, New Jersey’s largest nonprofit provider of home health care, hospice and community-based services, today announced that VNA of Central Jersey and all three of its joint-venture home health and hospice partnerships, including Cape Visiting Nurse Association (Cape VNA), Robert Wood Johnson Visiting Nurses (RWJ Visiting Nurses) and Visiting Nurse Association of Englewood (VNA of Englewood), earned high rankings in a new star rating system of home health care providers.
The star ratings were published last week by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the first time and sum up the results of nine of 29 publically available “Home Health Compare” measures that reflect the quality of care patients receive at home from nurse-led care teams.
Cape VNA, RWJ Visiting Nurses and VNA of Englewood earned a 4.5 star rating and were among only 7 agencies in the state to receive this rating. VNA of Central Jersey received a rating of 4 and was among only 11 other agencies. Thirty-nine percent of agencies in New Jersey received a 4.0 star rating and above.
According to CMS, the methodology used in the ratings measure the quality of care provided by home health care staff and include outcomes such as how often patients have improved at walking or getting in and out of bed and experiencing less pain as well as timeliness of treatment and hospital admissions. CMS issued the star ratings to help consumers, hospitals and other providers evaluate a home health agency’s quality at a glance.
“Receiving these kinds of results comes from dedicated clinical teams who work hard to deliver the highest quality of home health care to our more than 120,000 patients each year,” said Steve Landers, MD, MPH, President and CEO of VNA Health Group. “The star rating is another way that consumers can identify local home health care agencies whose professionals are making a commitment to high-quality home health and hospice care, and we are proud to be among the highest in the state.”
VNA Health Group’s licensed nursing staff and clinical home health teams includes more than 1,200 professionals who provide Cardiac, Wound, Cancer, Pediatric, Geriatric, Home Infusion, Palliative and Hospice care.
“The star rating is another symbol that recognizes home health care agencies that have quality improvement plans in place and are engaging regularly with their staff to ensure that the quality of care meets and exceeds both our own benchmarks, and that of CMS, as well as the expectations of patients and their families,” said Ellen Gusick, Chief Nursing Officer at VNA Health Group. “I am proud of our staff and their commitment to helping our patients achieve their highest level of well-being.”
To view the complete Home Health Compare data sets, click here. Ratings will be updated quarterly as more recent data becomes available.
Jesse Dean, VNA Health Group, http://www.vnahg.org/, +1 646-206-3090, [email protected]
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