Enhance Patient Care with data-driven insights. Discover the essential Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for home care agencies to monitor clinical excellence and care quality.

This blog will discuss Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Clinical and Quality of Care and why they are critical for effectively managing Home Care Agencies.

Overview

The demand for home and community-based care will grow as more elderly populations prefer to age at home. Even with the growth opportunities, home healthcare providers will face significant headwinds in taking advantage of these opportunities.

Declining reimbursement, labor shortage, increased labor costs, and regulations will significantly pressure home care agencies' operations and bottom line.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can play a crucial role in helping home care agencies to meet these challenges, continue to grow, and improve the bottom line. KPIs can help agencies measure current performance, identify areas for improvement, set operational goals, and ensure the goals are met. Understanding KPIs and selecting appropriate ones for the organization will help agencies improve operational efficiency and meet their growth goals.

The right technology and home health care software will be critical in home care agencies efforts to leverage KPIs to improve their operations.

What is a KPI

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable or quantifiable value over time used by organizations to measure performance and determine if they are accomplishing their goals.

KPIs are quantifiable measures that provide organizations to measure the current state of their performance, set meaningful goals and milestones to measure progress, and provide insights to employees across the organization to help them make better decisions.

KPIs for Clinical and Quality of Care

Clinical and Quality of Care KPIs provide information on average length of service, missed or late visits, client turnover, client satisfaction, number of incidents/complaints, etc. Analyzing this information over a period will help home care agencies measure the quality of care and patient satisfaction, identify areas for improvement, and improve the quality of care.

The following are some of the key metrics to track.

Key Performance Indicators for Home Care – Clinical and Quality of Care

Average Length of Stay (LOS) for Discharged Patients

This metric represents the Average Length of Stay for patients who have already been discharged.

The average length of stay for discharged patients enables home care agencies to project potential discharges and plan future operational capacity. By comparing the average length of stay for active patients with those for discharged patients, home care agency's operations leaders can get a sense of patients who may be getting discharged soon and optimally utilize caregivers. Home Health Care Software should provide reports and dashboards to measure the KPI by payers, locations, and service lines.

Average Length of Stay (LOS) for Active Patients

This metric represents the Average Length of Stay for currently active patients.

In conjunction with the Average LOS for Discharged Patients, the Average LOS for active patients will help home care agencies project potential discharges that will happen soon to optimize resource utilization. Home Health Care Software should provide reports and dashboards to measure the KPI by payers, locations, and service lines.

On-Time Completion of Clinical Notes

This metric represents the number of completed and signed clinical notes within 24 hours of the visit.

Completing the clinical notes on time will lead to improved quality of care with the availability of clinical notes for other clinicians visiting the patient. It will also improve compliance and reduce survey issues.

Missed, Late, or Canceled Visits/Shifts

Missed, Late, or Cancelled Visits/Shifts are defined as the number of missed, late, or canceled visits for a period.

Missed, Late, or canceled visits/shifts lead directly to decreased quality of care, patient satisfaction, and lost revenue. Monitoring and analyzing these KPIs will help home care agencies improve the quality of care for patient and employee satisfaction while minimizing lost revenue. Home Health Care Software should provide reports and dashboards to measure the KPIs by payers, locations, and service lines.

Location Mismatches

Location Mismatches are the number of visits/shifts that did not start or end at the patient's home or specified location.

Tracking this metric will help agencies ensure the employees are where they are supposed to be to provide care. Location mismatches will lead to a reduction in quality of care and patient satisfaction. They also lead to potential reimbursement and survey issues. Home Health Care Software should provide reports and dashboards to measure the KPIs by payers, locations, and service lines.

Incidents and Complaints

Incidents and Complaints KPI is defined as the number of patient complaints over a period.

Tracking the number of incidents and complaints will help home care agencies proactively detect issues and devise an intervention plan to address the problems. Home Health Care Software should provide reports and dashboards to measure the KPIs by locations and lines of service.

Client Turnover

Client Turnover KPI represents the ratio of clients who discontinued service over time.

Client Turnover KPI will help home care agencies review the reasons for discontinued service and devise a plan to rectify the issues that led to discontinued service.

Technology and Software Platform

In addition to selecting the KPIs to measure, agencies should ensure that the data captured for these measures is accurate and timely. Agencies should review their home care software platform to ensure they have the tools to collect and report on the data necessary to implement the KPIs.

Software platforms should also be able to create custom reports and charts and export the relevant data for external use. The option to access the data for tools like Power BI will significantly improve home care agencies’ ability to visualize and manage KPIs.

Conclusion

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can provide insight into operations and setting appropriate business goals for home healthcare agencies. Selecting the correct set of KPIs for Clinical and Quality of Care will help home care agencies measure the current performance, set goals going forward, and measure the progress toward meeting those goals. Right Home Health Care Software platform and technology will help agencies to capture accurate data and report to implement the KPIs.

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About CareVoyant:

CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home based services, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy at Home.

CareVoyant functions – Intake, Authorization Management, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, eMAR/eTAR, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), Billing/AR, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, improve operational efficiency and agency bottom line.

For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.