Leading Data Intelligence Firm Honors VNA of Southeast Michigan
as a Winner of the 2009 OCS HomeCare Vision Award

OCS HomeCare, the leader in home health benchmark reporting and outcomes measuring, announced that Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan (VNA) has earned its prestigious 2009 OCS Vision Award. VNA was one of eight organizations across the country to receive a vision award, and the only one in the Metro Detroit area. The award was presented in at the National Association of Home Care (NAHC) conference in Los Angeles this past October.

In its ninth year, the OCS Vision Awards honor and recognize the exceptional efforts of homecare and hospice providers from across the country that are actively engaged in strategic initiatives to improve quality of care and organizational performance.

Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan earned the award for its pioneering way of using predictive modeling technology to identify homecare patients with a high likelihood of being rehospitalized and developing an innovative plan of care to reduce that risk. As a result of these outcomes, the organization is looking at ways to overcome the challenges that impact patient care.

“VNA of Southeast Michigan not only cares for of some of the most impoverished members of our community who suffer from barriers to traditional health care, but also, faces an increasing population of individuals with advanced illness,” said Linda Pekar, RN, BA, CLNC, CHPN, director of organizational quality for VNA of Southeast Michigan. “Only 16 percent of our population was likely not to have an emergent care visit during a 60-day episode of care.”

Through predictive modeling, software that analyzes multiple factors about an individual’s health situation, VNA is able to identify the level of risk that a patient has of being rehospitalized. Based on that projected outcome, the organization is then able to create a very individualized program of care aimed at reducing the likelihood of a future rehospitalization.

“This process creates a more holistic approach to care, encouraging greater utilization of services that help our patients to remain safely at home, improves their comfort and reduces rehospitalization,” said Pekar.

About OCS HomeCare
OCS HomeCare empowers home health and hospice organizations with results-driven data intelligence, plus the largest and most accurate homecare databases for those industries. Homecare providers, payers, associations, government agencies, vendors, and consultants all turn to OCS to elevate decision-making, raise the bar on results, and bring home positive outcomes. For more information about OCS HomeCare, please visit www.ocshomecare.com or call (888) 325-3396.

About Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan—111 Years of Serving the Community
Since 1898, Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan (VNA) has been the first name in homecare and hospice for exceptional care delivered through innovative and specialty programs including TeleHomecare, wound care and orthopedics. Today, VNA of Southeast Michigan is the largest, independent nonprofit home health care and hospice organization to serve patients of all ages, from birth to end-of-life. Annually, VNA provides care to 8,000 residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and surrounding communities. For more information call (800) 882-5720 or visit www.vna.org.

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