Interrater reliability of the outcomes and assessment information set: results from the field.

The Outcomes and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) is now used extensively for regulatory, reimbursement, research, and clinical purposes in home health care. However, little is known about the interrater reliability of OASIS items based on assessments from home-health-agency clinicians. Therefore, we evaluated OASIS item interrater reliability among 88 patients from 21 agencies. Of 25 items studied, all except 2 had weighted kappa values of kappa > or = 0.60. We conclude that OASIS item interrater reliability was highly adequate in this study, but we recommend routine interrater-reliability evaluation by agencies to maximize the quality of OASIS data nationally.