Altoona, PA – July 13, 2010 – Delta Health Technologies, LLC (Delta) has announced that it will be joining with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), two of the nation’s therapy associates and the industry’s leading best practice research firm to create a Forum that will craft guidance for excellence in therapy for home health agencies. The goal of this project is to establish definitive guidelines and protocols that ensure appropriate allocation of rehabilitation services for each patient in a manner tailored to meet the individual’s clinical needs.
“This project will help the industry take necessary steps to promote the provision of optimal rehabilitation services to the elderly and disabled” says NAHC president Val Halamandaris. “As an industry, we need to insure best practices in therapy, from assessment through service delivery and documentation. We feel the best way to do this is to join with others to establish a National Forum to bring together home care therapy experts from every state. The project goal will be to generate best practice recommendations for ensuring appropriate delivery of therapy services.”
To be known as the “Delta National Excellence in Therapy Project,” the study will be sponsored by Delta, and co-sponsored by NAHC, by the Home Health Section of the American Physical Therapy Association, by the Home & Community Health Special Interest Section of the American Occupational Therapy Association and by Fazzi Associates. Fazzi Associates will be responsible for designing and facilitating the national effort.
This is the second major national effort within the past year that Delta has sponsored and Fazzi has carried out. “We sponsored the “National OASIS-C Best Practices Project” because we knew agencies throughout the country were concerned about how to ensure competency and accuracy when using the new OASIS instrument,” said, Keith Crownover, president and CEO of Delta. “Today, we recognize that the appropriate use of therapy is of concern to the entire industry – clinicians, agencies and information system vendors alike. As a thirty-six year member of the home care industry, we at Delta felt it was important that we help sponsor an effort that will benefit the entire industry.”
Cindy Krafft, president of the Home Care Section of the American Physical Therapy Association and Director of Fazzi’s Rehab Services, echoes Crownover’s view. “From therapy associations’ perspective, it is critically important that the role and integrity of therapy services within home care be clearly understood and appropriately used,” Krafft said, capturing the motivation for both therapy associations to agree to co-sponsor the effort.
The Project is now in the process of recruiting a therapy leader from each state to participate in the effort, which will be overseen by a project steering committee. A national input survey will be the project’s first activity, inviting leaders and staff from agencies throughout the country to have input and help shape the project. The National Forum is expected to meet in Chicago in September with initial findings presented at the NAHC Annual Meeting in Dallas in October.
As part of the effort, a series of free national webinars on the results and recommendations will be scheduled for late October or early November. A major report on the findings and recommendations will be issued at project end.
Links:
Home Health Section of the American Physical Therapy Association
Home & Community Health Special Interest Section of the American Occupational Therapy Association
