When you’re managing care and service delivery, there are endless metrics you could evaluate to optimize care. From tracking the number of visits a care provider makes daily to the percentage of visits that start and end on time, it’s tough to know where to focus your attention.
It’s a critical decision nonetheless. If you select the wrong metrics, you risk chasing improvements that would only minimally benefit your organization. But monitoring too many at one time can overwhelm your staff.
By focusing on the right key performance indicators (KPIs), you can improve your agency’s service quality and outcomes for your clients, your own agency, and your payers. So, how do you determine what those KPIs are?
Ultimately, successful outcomes depend on successful delivery of care. Therefore, the performance metrics you track should allow you to determine whether service was delivered:
- At the right place and the right time
- According to the client’s care plan
- Within the appropriate cost parameters
Let’s explore each of these questions in detail.
Was Service Delivered at the Right Time and Place?
Monitoring “right place, right time” activity is critical. Knowing where your caregivers are at any point in time is important — but also complex.
Your operations staff will need access to real-time GPS visibility and alerts to answer such imperative questions as:
- Are caregivers where they need to be? Electronic Visit Verification provides proof of the visit, and your operations team is notified of each caregiver’s arrival and departure from clients’ locations. GPS-based visibility helps ensure caregivers’ safety and efficiency.
- Are caregivers arriving and departing on schedule? On-time care delivery helps improve outcomes, client satisfaction, and provides real-time proof of visits for billing.
- Have caregivers missed any check-ins or checkouts? Omissions can allow your operations team to immediately confirm the safety of the caregiver and determine if they require assistance on a visit.
If you can’t manage this activity, your business is at risk of:
- Providing missing or incomplete visit documentation for payments and audits
- Increasing the risk of adverse events because of missed care
- Being unable to provide time-sensitive care on schedule
- Being unable to locate caregivers in real-time
Was Service Delivered According to the Care Plan?
To ensure positive client outcomes and efficient reimbursement for services, caregivers must follow the correct care plan for each client. This requires careful monitoring of caregiver performance:
- Did services delivered conform to the care plan? Variances to the care plan should trigger task-exception alerts that prompt further investigation. Additionally, a platform for secure communication across the client care team will ensure changes to the care plan are received and followed.
- Did the visit duration meet expectations? If the answer is “no,” this might signal a caregiver is either under- or over-serving clients. Knowing this helps operations staff intervene quickly and appropriately.
When staff can monitor this data, they can more effectively and efficiently contribute to the client’s care plan. Armed with more accurate information, clinicians can easily adjust plans and service levels to improve client outcomes. And clients and their families have a transparent view of the care delivered at every visit.
Was Service Delivered Within the Appropriate Cost Parameters?
Accurate billing and timely payments from funders and payers depend on how well you maintain cost boundaries when delivering services. The challenge, though, is to achieve cost savings without sacrificing staff satisfaction. Understanding and leveraging the following three metrics can help:
- How accurate are your travel expenses? What are your agency’s average travel expenses per episode of care? How confident are you that these numbers are reliable? If you monitored actual travel time and eliminated self-reporting, would your travel expenses likely be lower?
- How long is an average episode of care? Look to analyze the lengths of care episodes, both in historic data and in real time. The more you understand these numbers, the better your agency can create the accurate staffing models needed to meet service growth and expansion.
- How many staff visits does your agency complete daily? Empirical data will allow you to identify staffing capacity in real time. Fluctuations in this number will also indicate potential areas of concern – while also providing a better understanding of opportunities to improve staff productivity and increase your agency’s daily census.
When you’re tracking the right cost parameter data, you can align your budget with actual costs and minimize potential revenue leaks.
Implement a Comprehensive Care Delivery Management Solution to Track Data, Improve Care Delivery
As home health care demand grows, the need for accurate documentation is increasing even as margins are decreasing. This puts incredible pressure on home care agencies to find innovative ways to manage and improve their care delivery while achieving cost savings. Implementing a Care Delivery Management Solution that provides real-time insights can help your agency analyze the right data to improve operations, compliance, and performance over time.
To learn more about how you can better measure performance, optimize care quality, and achieve cost savings for your agency, download our free eBook, “3 Key Areas You Must Monitor to Successfully Manage In-Home Care Delivery.”
