Home Health Care Program Earns Gold Medal for Quality

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. - March 23, 2015 - PRLog -- South Nassau Communities Hospital’s Home Care program recently received the Home Health Quality Improvement (HHQI) Gold Medal award. The award signifies South Nassau Home Care’s commitment to quality and service excellence.

Gold medals are awarded only to those home care programs that successfully complete HHQI’s "Go for the Gold!" campaign using its “8 Best Practice Intervention Packages” for the 2012-14 campaign.  HHQI National Campaign is a grassroots movement designed to unite home health stakeholders and multiple health care settings under the shared vision of reducing avoidable hospitalizations and improving medication management.

“This award is directly attributable to the steadfast commitment of our staff to service excellence and teamwork to provide superior care and service for our patients and their loved ones,” said Nancy Helenek, RN, administrative director of the care continuum at South Nassau.

To reduce acute care hospitalization rates, the home care program utilized interventional tactics including assessing the risk of hospitalization, telehealth, and fall prevention.  Staff received advanced training in medication evaluation and management and patient information sheets, including a medication profile, which were provided to patients to improve the management of oral medications.

The home care program also utilized the “Call the Nurse First” campaign to reduce avoidable readmissions.  Patient admission packets now include an informational flier with the agency phone number and a reminder to “call the nurse first.”  Patients call the agency with any change in condition and RNs are sent to perform assessments, communicating their findings to the physicians.

The cumulative effect of the interventions and the campaign are reflected in data produced by Home Health Compare which shows that ER visits and hospitalizations of South Nassau Home Care patients are below both the New York State and National averages.

South Nassau Home Care received the award within days after it earned a spot in the prestigious HomeCare Elite™ listing of the top 25% of home health care providers in the United States.   The listing is based on a collection of performance measures including quality of care, quality improvement, patient experience, process measure implementation, and financial performance.

South Nassau’s Certified Home Health Agency offers short-term, acute care, and long-term home care services.  The range of services include: skilled nursing, rehabilitation services, medical social services, home health aide services and nutritional counseling.  Laboratory services, medical supplies and equipment and IV therapy services can be arranged through contracted vendors.  In addition, it offers specialty programs such as telehealth, medication management, and a fall prevention program.  Advanced wound care treatment and negative pressure wound therapy can also be provided.

South Nassau Home Health Care is licensed by the New York State Department of Health and certified to participate in Medicare, Medicaid and Blue Cross programs, as well as accredited by The Joint Commission.  For more information about South Nassau Home Care, call (516) 377-5000.

South Nassau is the only hospital on Long Island to win four major awards for quality in recent months, including for nursing excellence, patient safety and top rankings from U.S. News & World Report & from the Joint Commission.

Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), South Nassau® Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians and 3,000 employees.  Located in Oceanside, NY, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health and emergency services.  In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and is the only hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies.  South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health and Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is an accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program.  In addition, the hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care; and disease-specific care for hip and joint replacement, wound care and end-stage renal disease. For more information, visit www.southnassau.org.