Quality indicators: an approach to quality improvement in home healthcare

In this article, Donna Wagner discusses using quality indicators as a means of improving quality in home healthcare. Stressing the need for an organization to have a thorough foundation in total quality management as its working context, the article demonstrates how to use quality indicators as part of a quality improvement program. Monitoring quality indicators in a home health agency will provide specific information on aspects of care that the agency has identified as measures of quality. This cost-effective monitoring can be a means of incorporating QI activities into daily work patterns.