This project will launch a national partnership among home health care providers to improve care for a priority population - elderly home care recipients. The goal is to create a model and establish an infrastructure through which collaborating organizations can 1) identify and prioritize aims for improvement, and 2) gain access to methods, tools and materialns that will enable them to conduct more sophisticated, evidence-based quality improvement activities than they could individually. The partnership will initially be comprised of six home health agencies from across the U.S. and will expand to include additional partners and/or additional substantive targets over a four-year period. A learning collaborative model, adapted from the successful Breakthrough Series approach developed by the Institute for Healthcare improvement (IHI), will be created to serve as a central mechanism of the partnership. Through the learning collaborative, partnership members witl develop the skills to apply state of the art methods to implement evidence-based practices to improve overall quality of care and patient outcomes. Topics for collaborative improvement activities will be chosen, based on member need and the availability of an appropriate evidence base, from priority conditions - such as diabetes management, wound care, or pain management - among both home care and general patient populations. The development of a """"""""tool kit"""""""" of materials and techniques will provide existing and prospective partnership members, as welt as other home health care organizations interested in quality improvement, with easily accessible resources for translating research findings into daily practice. The project will conclude with the dissemination of results and lessons learned at a national conference.
