Hospices scored 83.6% on a new Hospice Item Set (HIS) composite measure that appeared on Hospice Compare as part of the website’s Nov. 30 quarterly refresh.
 
The Hospice and Palliative Care Composite Process Measure — Comprehensive Assessment at Admission (NQF #3235), is also known as the Hospice Comprehensive Assessment Measure or the HIS Comprehensive Assessment Measure.
 
CMS believes the composite measure is more indicative of quality of care than individual scores on HIS measures, according to Theresa Forster and Katie Wehri and of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.
 
When it comes to scoring on those measures, “Hospice and palliative care pain assessment” remains the most difficult individual measure for providers to earn high marks. But the industry overall has improved nearly 7% on the measure since Hospice Compare’s final refresh in 2017.
Hospices scored 85.5% on the measure in the Nov. 30 refresh. That’s a 2.1% improvement from August 2018 and a 6.8% improvement from December 2017.
 
Hospices nationwide improved on all seven HIS measures in Hospice Compare’s latest update. In fact, they earned an average score of 93.8% or higher on six of the seven measures, according to the Nov. 30 refresh.
 
HIS data included in the latest refresh of Hospice Compare were collected between Jan. 1, 2017, and Dec. 31, 2017.