Home health outcome patterns.

Using OASIS data collected by all Medicare-certified home health agencies, this article first presents descriptive statistics on patient outcomes for a national agency sample in 2001, soon after Medicare prospective payment implementation. Ratios of actual to predicted outcome rates, aggregated for groups of outcomes, are considered as potential summary indicators of agency outcome performance. The aggregate ratios show promise, but information on each outcome remains critical to agencies' outcome improvement efforts. Ratios for some outcomes are interrelated, suggesting that agencies focusing outcome enhancement efforts on a few target outcomes also may improve related outcomes.