MURRAY — The Home Care Services at Murray-Calloway County Hospital were recently named in the top 25 percent of home care agencies by the National Research Corporation.

The study, a product of National Research Corporation, uses publicly available data from Home Health Compare and the CMS Cost Reports to create the HomeCare Elite List of agencies.

Five domains of performance were cumulatively analyzed: quality of care, quality improvement, patient experience, process measure implementation and financial performance.

The quality of care, process measure implementation, and patient experience domains measure agency performance in each of the publicly-reported Home Health Compare measures.

The quality improvement index is based on changes in the eight outcomes between data released in July 2011 and July 2012. The financial performance measure represents agency indexed Medicare profit margin from the 2011 CMS Cost Reports.

Agency performance in each of the domains was compared against the performance of other organizations in their state and nationwide.

The domains were combined into one overall score, using a weighting methodology that gives the greatest importance to quality of care. The top 25 percent of agencies in each region, both facility-based and free-standing, were identified and added to the national list.

At Murray-Calloway County Hospital, the Home Care Department offers in-home medical services for patients of all ages and needs, including pediatrics and hospice care.

Home Care services cover nursing care such as IV therapy, wound care, lab tests, dietary and teaching needs. It also includes physical, occupational and speech therapies; medical social worker assistance; respite care; medical supplies; personal care; and homemaker services as appropriate.

The goal of Home Care is to allow recovering, chronic, or terminally ill patients to be as independent and as comfortable as possible in the comfort of their own home while receiving the care they need.

MCCH Home Care is nationally accredited by the Joint Commission and in 2011 celebrated top quality measures of patient care rankings by Medicare.gov in 12 categories.

The study is released annually and serves as a consumer comparison of home health services. All twelve MCCH Home Care rankings were above the Kentucky state average and eleven of the twelve were above or equal to the national average.

Murray-Calloway County Hospital’s Home Care’s mission is to provide comprehensive in-home health and supportive services for Calloway and Marshall County’s disabled and chronically ill patients and their families.

For more information about Home Care services at MCCH, visit www.murrayhospital.org.