Visiting nurse services have been delivering home-based health care since the late 19th century providing everything from maternal and child health to geriatric care. Today their services are more frequently being sought due to an ever-increasing emphasis on keeping patients out of the hospital (and emergency department), improving care coordination, comprehensiveness and patient satisfaction and paying for care that improves quality and care outcomes and that is more cost efficient.
During this 19 minute discussion Ms. Moorhead discusses the goals of VNAA and its members, services its visiting nurses and other home health providers deliver, health care outcomes achieved and a range of federal Medicare policy options currently under discussion to improve care in the so called "post acute" care setting. (One factual correction: Medicare spending on post-acute care in 2013 was $59 billion.)
Tracey Moorhead is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Visiting Nurse Associations of America (VNAA). VNAA educates, advocates and promotes nonprofit providers of home-based care services including home health, palliative care and hospice. Previously, Tracey served as CEO of the Care Continuum Alliance. Prior roles also include serving as Executive Director of the Alliance to Improve Medicare (AIM), a bipartisan coalition advocating comprehensive Medicare improvements through the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and Vice President, Government Relations for the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC). She was graduated from The George Washington University.
For more about the VNAA go to: www.vnaa.org.
Care Provided by Visiting Nurses: A Conversation with Tracey Moorhead (April 20th)