Carroll Area Nursing Service is proud to announce that it has been named a Top Agency of the 2018 HomeCare Elite, a recognition of the top-performing home health agencies in the United States. For 13 years, HomeCare Elite has annually identified the top 25 percent of Medicare-certified agencies and highlighted the top 100 and top 500 agencies overall.

The ranking is developed by ABILITY® Network, a leading information technology company helping providers and payers simplify the administrative and clinical complexities of healthcare. It is sponsored by DecisionHealth, publisher of Home Health Line and the Complete Home Health ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Coding Manual.

“I would like to congratulate the team at Carroll Area Nursing Service and thank them for their commitment to providing consistently high-quality care,” said Christine Lang, senior director for ABILITY Network. “During a time of increasing demands on home health professionals’ time and attention, these caregivers and leaders have demonstrated that they have prioritized their patients and created a solid foundation for serving their communities and partnering with other healthcare providers.”

“Congratulations to Carroll Area Nursing Service from all of the staff at DecisionHealth,” said Marci Geipe, product manager for Decision Health. “Your leadership and staff have placed a premium on the patient care your agency provides as showcased by your quality outcome scores. The entire community benefits from the compassion that your staff shows toward your patients, leading to cost savings for the entire healthcare system.”

HomeCare Elite agencies are determined by an analysis of performance measures in quality outcomes, best practices implementation, patient experience (HHCAHPS), quality improvement and consistency, and financial health. In order to be considered, an agency must be Medicare-certified and have data for at least three outcomes in Home Health Compare. Out of 8,898 agencies considered, 2,223 are recognized on the 2018 HomeCare Elite winners list overall.

The entire list of 2018 HomeCare Elite agencies can be downloaded by visiting the ABILITY Network website at abilitynetwork.com/hce.

About Carroll Area Nursing Service
Mickey Bierl, RN, established Carroll Area Nursing Service in September 1993 with one goal in mind, to provide quality personalized home care to clients of all ages. Mickey opened the office at 603 N. Court St. in Carroll with seven employees. Today, Carroll Area Nursing Service has grown to include five offices serving 12 counties and approximately 50 employees. Carroll Area Nursing Service remains a privately owned family business with Kim Lambert, Mickey’s daughter, as the administrator. As a medium-sized family run business, Carroll Area Nursing Service has the unique advantage of being large enough to have a caring and compassionate staff with hundreds of years of combined experience, yet small enough to care for our clients as an individual, not just a number. Because of this, clients say, “The staff may have entered our home as a stranger but they left as a friend.”

About ABILITY Network
ABILITY Network, an Inovalon Company (NASDAQ:INOV), is a leading cloud-based, SaaS information technology company helping providers and payers simplify the administrative and clinical complexities of healthcare through innovative applications and data analytics. The combination of myABILITY and the Inovalon ONE™ Platform creates a vertically integrated cloud-based platform empowering the achievement of real-time value-based care from payers, manufacturers and diagnostics, all the way to the patient’s point of care. For more information, visit www.abilitynetwork.com or write to resources@abilitynetwork.com. For more information about HomeCare Elite, call 888.572.4009, write to homecareelite@abilitynetwork.com or visit www.abilitynetwork.com/hce.

About H3.Group
In March 2017, Simplify Compliance LLC announced the merger of DecisionHealth, LLC with existing brands HCPro and HealthLeaders Media, to form the H3.Group! H3.Group, with its three pillars of thought leadership, expertise, and application, provides critical insight, analysis, tools and training to healthcare organizations nationwide empowering today’s healthcare professionals with solution-focused information and intelligence to guide their organizations’ efforts in achieving compliance, financial performance, leadership, and organizational excellence. The creation of the H3.Group comes as healthcare faces an unprecedented period of transition that brings uncertainty and opportunity. As policies and regulations are revisited and payment models changed, the need for clarity, actionable guidance and expert training for all provider settings and functional areas will increase dramatically.

About DecisionHealth
For over 30 years, DecisionHealth, an H3.Group brand, has served as the industry’s leading source for news, analysis and instructional guidance with brand names such as Home Health Line and Part B News. Our unique blend of award-winning on-staff journalists and unmatched access to health care executives, providers and their administrative staffs results in business management advice and operationally focused editorial that has captured the attention of nearly 100,000 home health care professionals and specialty physician practices.

Nurses at Carroll Area Nursing Service received Wound VAC recertification recently.

Janet L. our certified training nurse held the class. Our nurses are highly trained in Wound VAC treatment and other wound cares. Carroll Area Nursing Service takes great pride in client care and offering the most advanced form of care.

Manning was the site for a county-wide emergency simulation of a bus rollover accident on July 19th. Carroll Area Nursing Service had four nurses participate in this exercise – Ann Langel, RN, Janet Ladehoff, RN, Beth Harms, RN, BSN, and Marie Pudenz, RN, BSN.

The drill had approximately 20 kids simulating injuries and required a number of agencies to work together.

The county puts on at least three training sessions a year allowing area agencies to practice working together so they will be better prepared in the event of a disaster. With all the hours our staff spends on the road daily and logging over 300,000 thousands of miles a year, our nurses felt this drill held extra significance for them.

A big thank you to all the volunteers who took the time to participate in this drill to help CANS staff as well as Carroll County Emergency Medical Services, Carroll County Public Health, Manning Regional Healthcare Center, St. Anthony Regional Hospital, Manning Police Dept., and Manning, Manilla and Templeton Fire Departments be better prepared in the event of an actual emergency situation.