Improving oral medication management in home health agencies.

This study focused on home health agency characteristics and evidence-based practices that could have an impact on the ability to improve the home health outcome-based quality improvement measure: improvement in the management of oral medications. The findings of this Quality Improvement Organization-approved study suggest that there are organizational characteristics and evidence-based practices associated with better rates for this outcome measure. Organizational characteristics include belonging to a healthcare system that is hospital based, not-for-profit part of a network focused on quality, and intentionally working on the oral medications outcome. Evidence-based practices include use of reminder strategies, phone follow-up interventions, repeat patient education about medications at subsequent home care visits, and use of medication simplification strategies for patients receiving multiple medications.