Affinity Visiting Nurses, a member of Ministry Home Care located in Neenah, has been named to the 2009 HomeCare Elite^™, a compilation of the top performing home health agencies in the United States. This annual review identifies the top 25 percent of agencies and further highlights the top 100 and top 500 agencies overall. Winners are ranked by an analysis of performance measures in quality outcomes, quality improvement and financial performance.

“The 2009 HomeCare Elitewinners exemplify a commitment to providing their patients with the best possible care while performing at the highest level,” said Nancy Buller, senior director of marketing communications at OCS HomeCare. "We congratulate Affinity Visiting Nurses on being one of the Top 500 home care agencies in the country."

“DecisionHealth would like to congratulate the top HomeCare Elite agencies that achieved excellent clinical and financial outcomes by providing quality care to their patients,” adds Marci Heydt, executive editor of DecisionHealth’s Home Health Line.

The 2009 HomeCare Elite is the only performance recognition of its kind in the home health industry. The 2009 HomeCare Elite is brought to the industry by OCS, Inc., the leading provider of homecare information, and DecisionHealth, publisher of home care’s most respected independent newsletter Home Health Line. The data used for this analysis was compiled from publicly available information. The entire list of the 2009 HomeCare Elite agencies can be viewed by visiting the OCS Web site at www.ocshomecare.com.

About Affinity Visiting Nurses

Affinity Visiting Nurses, a member of Ministry Home Care, has an office in Neenah and a worksite in Chilton. Their team provides home health care to patients throughout the region, with outreach to thirteen area counties. The AVN home health team brings professional rehabilitative and nursing services to individuals in their homes, allowing them to achieve optimal recovery from illness or injury, regaining the independence that allows them to stay in the comfort of their own home.

Affinity Visiting Nurses offers unique specialized services in addition to therapy and nursing services. Their high-tech telemonitoring program provides patients with small wireless devices in their homes that allow them to check their vital signs daily, with monitoring by a registered nurse. With this new technology, any significant changes can be addressed more quickly, allowing patients to avoid exacerbations that may result in more serious illness or hospitalization.

Their PATH™ program brings holistic care to patients who are coping with serious long-term illnesses. PATH, which stands for Palliative Approach to Treatment at Home, provides the patient and their family social, emotional, and spiritual support as well as physical care.

For more information on the services provided by Affinity Visiting Nurses, go to affinityvisitingnurses.org.

OCS HomeCare empowers home health and hospice organizations with results-driven data intelligence, plus the largest and most accurate homecare database in the industry. Homecare providers, payers, associations, government agencies, vendors, and consultants all turn to OCS to elevate decision-making, raise the bar on results, and bring home positive outcomes. For more information about OCS HomeCare, please visit www.ocshomecare.com or call 888.325.3396.

For more than 30 years, DecisionHealth has served as the industry's leading source for news, analysis and instructional guidance with cutting edge information sources such as Part B News, Home Health Line, Medicare Compliance Alert, Inside the Joint Commission and Specialty Coders Pink Sheets. Our unique blend of award-winning on-staff journalists and unmatched access to health care executives, providers, healthcare organization managers and their revenue-cycle staffs enables us to provide solutions, tools and guidance that’s relied on by nearly 100,000 home health care and specialty physician practice professionals. For more information, please visit www.DecisionHealth.com or call 877.602.3835.