Deyta and NHPCO Partner to Strengthen Quality Improvement

(Louisville, KY – March 26, 2011) – The National Hospice and Palliative Care organization (NHPCO) has reaffirmed its eight-year collaboration with HEALTHCAREfirst‘s Deyta, LLC to collect, analyze and report results of the Family Evaluation of Hospice Care (FEHC) survey. Deyta and NHPCO partner together to continue to grow and strengthen the United States’ largest hospice quality benchmark database, in which approximately one-third of the nation’s hospices participate.

In December 2010, in collaboration with FEHC developer Joan Teno, MD, MS of Brown University, NHPCO’s research team released the first major revision of the FEHC survey tool since it was originally introduced to the hospice industry in 2003. The team has also designed new reports to better support hospices’ quality improvement efforts. This NHPCO partner is committed to providing meaningful and useful reports for the Family Evaluation of Hospice Care survey that can be readily understood and incorporated into hospices’ Quality Assessment/Performance Improvement (QAPI) programs.

“Our goal is to improve the usability of the report to better meet hospices’ performance improvement needs,” said Carol Spence, PhD, Director of Research and Quality at NHPCO. “The FEHC is a valuable tool that NHPCO encourages all hospice providers to use as part of their quality efforts that will help ensure that they have the best possible information to guide improvement in quality care for their patients and families.”

The Family Evaluation of Hospice Care (FEHC) survey is a post-death survey designed to yield actionable information reflecting the quality of hospice care delivery from the perspective of family caregivers.