Michele Tankersley

Special to the Tribune

Maury Regional Home Services has been named a Top Agency of the 2016 HomeCare Elite, a recognition of the top-performing home health agencies in the United States. For more than ten years, HomeCare Elite has annually identified the top 25 percent of Medicare-certified agencies and highlights the top 100 and top 500 agencies overall. Maury Regional Home Services has been named to this prestigious list every year since its inception eleven years ago.

"It is very rewarding to see our staff members recognized for the quality care they provide to our patients every day. To be named to this prestigious list for eleven years is a reflection of their commitment to quality and patient satisfaction," said Home Services Director Rosemary Edmonds.

Maury Regional Home Services offers nursing care, rehabilitation services, home health aides and disease management. In addition, home monitoring equipment for vital signs such as weight, blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturations are available. Services are available in each of the eight counties served by Maury Regional Health.

The HomeCare Elite ranking is developed by ABILITY Network, a leading information technology company helping providers and payers simplify the administrative and clinical complexities of health care; and sponsored by DecisionHealth, publisher of Home Health Line, The Complete Home Health ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Coding Manual and The Home Health Coding Center.

"Improving quality of care and the patient experience continue to underpin a rapidly evolving health care environment," said Christine Lang, Senior Director, Product Management, for ABILITY Network. "At the same time tracking, measuring and interpreting data that support these efforts is becoming more complex. The 2016 HomeCare Elite winners have demonstrated the highest-quality care in their communities, which is a remarkable achievement. We congratulate Maury Regional Home Services on being one of the top home care agencies in the country."

"We are proud to recognize the HomeCare Elite agencies for demonstrating a commitment to improving quality patient care at low costs. The clinical best practices and data tracking skills these agencies have implemented can position them for future success in government programs such as value-based purchasing and star ratings," Marci Heydt said. She is the senior content manager, DecisionHealth.

Winners are ranked by an analysis of publicly available performance measures in quality outcomes, best practice (process measure) implementation, patient experience (Home Health CAHPS®), quality improvement and consistency, and financial performance. In order to be considered, an agency must be Medicare-certified and have data for at least one outcome in Home Health Compare. Out of 9,406 agencies considered, 2,353 are recognized on the 2016 HomeCare Elite winners list overall.