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Back to the future!
EDITORIAL Back to the Future!
Tina M. Marrelli, MSN, MA, RNC, editor of Home Care Provider, has written The Handbook of Home Health Standards and Documentation Guidelines for Reimbursement (The Little Red Book), The Nurse Manager’s Survival Guide, Mosby’s Home Care & Hospice Drug Handbook, Home Care Therapy: Quality, Documentation, and Reimbursement, and The Hospice and Palliative Care Handbook.
doi:10.1067/mhc.2001.115194
44 ■ Home Care Provider
Those of us working with Medicarecertified home care agencies have just completed the first 6 months under the prospective payment system (PPS). We have made the transition to operating under a managed care system, a hybrid of capitation, if you will. We can improve our practices and operations only as our OASIS data collection improves, our clinical paths are refined, and our people skills help us do our part in retaining aides, peers, and all other team members. Information addressed in the magazine this month includes telehealth and disease management, aide supervision, and recruitment and retention strategies. Some of these topics are not totally new to those of us in health care, but they all have totally new twists in 2001 and beyond. Telehealth has been around for some years now. The variation is that we in home care now see what it might become in the future—an adjunct or supportive intervention to our carefully managed and planned visits. Marilynn Berendt and colleagues present information to assist in plans to delve into this arena. One of my favorite topics is home health aides and their retention and education. In our continuing education article, Margherita Labson brings a practical and holistic view to the numerous activities that effective home health supervision comprises. Given that skilled visits are the costliest part of our care delivery system,
aides are more important than ever, particularly as we look to the future. The numbers that we are projected to need are truly staggering: according to a recent Bureau of Labor Statistic report, personal care and home health aides are projected (need) to increase by 433,000 between now and 2008. Overall, health care will remain a growth industry as we Boomers start to reach retirement age. Couple this information with the “new” nursing shortage, and we all should appropriately worry about who will care for us! The biggest change in this nursing shortage is that it will not be just a cycle, as it historically has been throughout our profession. As many of us seek to retire, the numbers of graduate nurses following to take our places will not be adequate. Taken all together, our care models as we have known them must change. Innovatively rethinking our care and related processes must occur at this time as we consider our operations down the road. Albert Einstein is credited with saying,“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” At this juncture in our professions and industry, this observation is certainly true. Though we know much, we must revisit what we have taken as second-nature and strive today to create the model for communitybased home care of the future. Sincerely, Tina M. Marrelli
Tina M. Marrelli, MSN, MA, RNC, editor of Home Care Provider, has written The Handbook of Home Health Standards and Documentation Guidelines for Reimbursement (The Little Red Book), The Nurse Manager’s Survival Guide, Mosby’s Home Care & Hospice Drug Handbook, Home Care Therapy: Quality, Documentation, and Reimbursement, and The Hospice and Palliative Care Handbook.
doi:10.1067/mhc.2001.115194
44 ■ Home Care Provider
Those of us working with Medicarecertified home care agencies have just completed the first 6 months under the prospective payment system (PPS). We have made the transition to operating under a managed care system, a hybrid of capitation, if you will. We can improve our practices and operations only as our OASIS data collection improves, our clinical paths are refined, and our people skills help us do our part in retaining aides, peers, and all other team members. Information addressed in the magazine this month includes telehealth and disease management, aide supervision, and recruitment and retention strategies. Some of these topics are not totally new to those of us in health care, but they all have totally new twists in 2001 and beyond. Telehealth has been around for some years now. The variation is that we in home care now see what it might become in the future—an adjunct or supportive intervention to our carefully managed and planned visits. Marilynn Berendt and colleagues present information to assist in plans to delve into this arena. One of my favorite topics is home health aides and their retention and education. In our continuing education article, Margherita Labson brings a practical and holistic view to the numerous activities that effective home health supervision comprises. Given that skilled visits are the costliest part of our care delivery system,
aides are more important than ever, particularly as we look to the future. The numbers that we are projected to need are truly staggering: according to a recent Bureau of Labor Statistic report, personal care and home health aides are projected (need) to increase by 433,000 between now and 2008. Overall, health care will remain a growth industry as we Boomers start to reach retirement age. Couple this information with the “new” nursing shortage, and we all should appropriately worry about who will care for us! The biggest change in this nursing shortage is that it will not be just a cycle, as it historically has been throughout our profession. As many of us seek to retire, the numbers of graduate nurses following to take our places will not be adequate. Taken all together, our care models as we have known them must change. Innovatively rethinking our care and related processes must occur at this time as we consider our operations down the road. Albert Einstein is credited with saying,“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” At this juncture in our professions and industry, this observation is certainly true. Though we know much, we must revisit what we have taken as second-nature and strive today to create the model for communitybased home care of the future. Sincerely, Tina M. Marrelli