OBJECTIVE: This study examines the association between home health agency characteristics and quality improvement in home health care after Home Health Compare (HHC), a public-reporting initiative in the Medicare program. METHOD: We examined the changes in seven quality measures reported in HHC from 2003 to 2007. We used a linear regression model to examine whether quality changes over time differed by agency characteristics. RESULTS: We found improvements in quality after HHC in the indicators that measure patients' ability to independently manage daily activities; however, the use of emergent care did not change, and hospitalization rates increased during the study period. Agencies with low quality at baseline, not-for-profit or hospital-based agencies, and agencies with longer Medicare tenure showed greater improvement for some quality measures than their counterparts. DISCUSSION: There was large variation in the degree of quality improvement after HHC by quality indicators and by agency characteristics.
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Jung et al. (2010) studied this question.
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