Kommunale Pflegeberichterstattung für die Planung der Altenhilfe in Städten und Gemeinden

A key element in the demographic transition process is the increase in the number of very old people (80+) leading to a rising need for long-term care. For the municipalities the efficient organisation of the local support for senior citizens is an important task for legal, political and financial reasons. The local planning process must be based on systematic reporting about long-term care in the community. This report must contain fundamental facts about the demographic situation, the health care system, including the quality of care in nursing homes, by ambulatory services and families as well as the resulting costs in the local welfare budget. Comparing the problem to the methods in local health promotion it is favourable to establish an office to manage the planning process and a committee for matters of care. Committee members should be all relevant stakeholders of the local health, the care and the social sector. The first priority is to achieve the participation of patients, their relatives and the local politicians to agree on targets and measures in the planning process. Key targets are the prevention of risks for long-term care, to secure the quality of care and the preference for ambulatory services, optimisation of local cooperation and minimising the costs for the community. The whole process should be guided by these targets for the provision of care.     

The impact of legislative versus non-legislative quality policy in health care: a comparison between two countries

An important aim of the government's quality policy is to stimulate quality management (QM) in health care organizations. The relationship between the government's quality policy and QM in health care organizations is unknown. This article explores that relationship by comparing two countries with different quality policies, The Netherlands and Finland. In The Netherlands QM is required by law and health care is organized at national level. In Finland, QM is not required by law and the responsibilities for organizing health care are delegated to the municipalities. The question is whether or not these differences in national policy are reflected in the extent and effectiveness of QM in health care organizations in the two countries. A cross sectional survey was conducted in late 1999. Data about QM in both countries were gathered by questionnaire. The subsectors involved were hospitals, care for the disabled and care for the elderly. A total of 1172 health care organizations participated in the study (response rate 64%). The results show that-in keeping with our hypothesis-slightly more QM-activities and more patient participation were found in Dutch health care organizations compared with the Finnish ones. However, contrary to our expectations, the Finnish organizations reported more perceived effects of their QM-activities. Further analyses showed that some QM-activities are more closely related to the effectiveness of QM than others. In particular, cyclic quality improvement procedures, human resource management and the flexible attitude of employees showed the strongest relationship with the perceived effects of QM. The difference between the national approach in The Netherlands and the decentralized approach in Finland did not, as we had assumed, result in more regional variation in QM in Finland. CONCLUSIONS: a government's quality policy may have some influence on the extent of QM in health care organizations. However, more QM-activities do not necessarily imply more effects. RECOMMENDATIONS: since QM-activities differ in the degree to which they bring about changes and improvements in care, it is recommended that policy makers promote those QM-activities, which are the most potent, in order to improve the quality of care.     

The Interventions to Reduce Acute Care Transfers (INTERACT) Quality Improvement Program: An Overview for Medical Directors and Primary Care Clinicians in Long Term Care

Interventions to Reduce Acute Care Transfers (INTERACT) is a publicly available quality improvement program that focuses on improving the identification, evaluation, and management of acute changes in condition of nursing home residents. Effective implementation has been associated with substantial reductions in hospitalization of nursing home residents. Familiarity with and support of program implementation by medical directors and primary care clinicians in the nursing home setting are essential to effectiveness and sustainability of the program over time. In addition to helping nursing homes prevent unnecessary hospitalizations and their related complications and costs, and thereby continuing to be or becoming attractive partners for hospitals, health care systems, managed care plans, and accountable care organizations, effective INTERACT implementation will assist nursing homes in meeting the new requirement for a robust quality assurance performance improvement program, which is being rolled out by the federal government over the next year.     

The Seniors Quality Leap Initiative (SQLI): An International Collaborative to Improve Quality in Long-Term Care

ObjectivesTo describe an innovative Canadian and US community of practice that employs empirical evidence based on risk-adjusted indicators to guide collaborative initiatives to improve the quality of care in nursing homes.DesignOngoing study of quality of care related to pain management in nursing home residents using clinical assessment records.Settingand Participants: Nursing home residents in 14 organizations in Canada and the United States between 2014 and 2017. The most recent analytic samples for quality indicator calculation involve 11,123 unique residents in 68 homes associated with 12 different long-term care organizations.MeasuresAssessment data on pain and associated risk adjusters were obtained from the RAI/MDS 2.0 and MDS 3.0 assessments in Canadian and US nursing homes, respectively.ResultsThe Seniors Quality Leap Initiative has been functioning as an active community of practice for almost a decade with the aim of demonstrating leadership in the use of collaborative approaches to drive evidence-informed improvements in the quality of long-term care. Initiatives with a specific emphasis on improving care related to pain resulted in notable improvements in quality of clinical care in specific homes as well as within the network as a whole.Conclusions and ImplicationsThe Seniors Quality Leap Initiative demonstrates that a partnership between organizations in 2 countries can foment quality transitions through a shared commitment to identifying needs; employing flexible, but practical initiatives; and evaluating the impact of those initiatives through a transparent reporting mechanism.     

Challenges of Using Quality Improvement Methods in Nursing Homes that “Need Improvement”

ObjectivesQualitatively describe the adoption of strategies and challenges experienced by intervention facilities participating in a study targeted to improve quality of care in nursing homes “in need of improvement”. To describe how staff use federal quality indicator/quality measure (QI/QM) scores and reports, quality improvement methods and activities, and how staff supported and sustained the changes recommended by their quality improvement teams.Design/setting/participantsA randomized, two-group, repeated-measures design was used to test a 2-year intervention for improving quality of care and resident outcomes in facilities in “need of improvement”. Intervention group (n = 29) received an experimental multilevel intervention designed to help them: (1) use quality-improvement methods, (2) use team and group process for direct-care decision-making, (3) focus on accomplishing the basics of care, and (4) maintain more consistent nursing and administrative leadership committed to communication and active participation of staff in decision-making.ResultsA qualitative analysis revealed a subgroup of homes likely to continue quality improvement activities and readiness indicators of homes likely to improve: (1) a leadership team (nursing home administrator, director of nurses) interested in learning how to use their federal QI/QM reports as a foundation for improving resident care and outcomes; (2) one of the leaders to be a “change champion” and make sure that current QI/QM reports are consistently printed and shared monthly with each nursing unit; (3) leaders willing to involve all staff in the facility in educational activities to learn about the QI/QM process and the reports that show how their facility compares with others in the state and nation; (4) leaders willing to plan and continuously educate new staff about the MDS and federal QI/QM reports and how to do quality improvement activities; (5) leaders willing to continuously involve all staff in quality improvement committee and team activities so they “own” the process and are responsible for change.ConclusionsResults of this qualitative analysis can help allocate expert nurse time to facilities that are actually ready to improve. Wide-spread adoption of this intervention is feasible and could be enabled by nursing home medical directors in collaborative practice with advanced practice nurses.     

Nursing homes in China

China will face a dramatic transition from a young to an aged society in the coming 30 to 40 years. In 2000, there were 88,110,000 persons aged 65 years and older, which represented 7% of the population. This percentage is projected to increase to 23% in 2050. Regarding health and long-term care for older adults, the current challenge is to build a comprehensive system of care for older adults. Nursing home care is an inevitable care model for frail older adults in China, which is largely sponsored by the government of China with contributions from some nongovernment organizations and private investors. China is a large country. Within the country, long-term care varies greatly between rural and urban areas, and among the different economic developing areas. In urban and better-developed areas, the range of services exists; however, in rural and less-developed areas, the range of services is limited. The "Star Light Program" and "Beloved Care Engineering" were recent government initiatives to improve aged care. They were launched in 2001 and have dramatically increased the number of both senior centers and nursing homes for older adults. While the quantity of nursing homes is still inadequate with an additional mismatch problem between the supply and demand, the quality of care in most nursing homes is suboptimal. At present, most administrative and frontline workers in nursing homes have received little training in elder care. There is a need for good-quality structured training in long-term care for all types of staff. Moreover, quality standard for care, including standard setting, assessment, and monitoring, is an important issue and needs substantial improvement for nursing homes in China. Currently, 1.5% of older people live in nursing homes and apartments for older people. Because of the peculiar 4-2-1 family structure in China, we expect the prevalence of nursing home placement of older adults will increase in the coming years. The government of China has realized that it is financially not sustainable to expand in this area using only the government's resources. The current policy is to encourage private and foreign investors to participate in the nursing home business in China.     

Dependency, quality and staffing of institutions for elderly people

There have been dramatic changes in residential and nursing care of elderly people in the community over the last decade. Despite this, little is known about how these institutions compare in terms of: the quality of care they provide to residents; the dependency of the residents; or the manpower levels and qualifications of the staff employed. This study was undertaken with the aim of comparing the public and private sectors providing care to elderly people. A random selection of institutions was invited to participate, including private residential and nursing homes, Social Services homes and National Health Services long-term care wards. The findings show that the dependency of residents in the public sector was greater than in the private sector, with more mentally confused, incontinent and socially disengaged residents in the public sector. The staff to resident ratio in public institutions did not differ significantly from the private sector. Overall scores of quality of care were similar. Nevertheless, these scores masked important differences between the sectors, eg poorer buildings and facilities characterised the National Health Service units. Fewer activities and therapies, but a better ambience, was noted in the private nursing homes. These results suggest that the outcome of a policy to transfer the most heavily dependent patients from the care of the public sector could increasingly burden the private sector. This would result increase the proportion of highly dependent residents, with no clear provision for improved staff ratios, quality of care or training of staff.     

Medicare and Medicaid: conflicting incentives for long-term care

The structure of Medicare and Medicaid creates conflicting incentives regarding dually eligible beneficiaries without coordinating their care. Both Medicare and Medicaid have an interest in limiting their costs, and neither has an incentive to take responsibility for the management or quality of care. Examples of misaligned incentives are Medicare's cost-sharing rules, cost shifting within home health care and nursing homes, and cost shifting across chronic and acute care settings. Several policy initiatives--capitation, pay-for-performance, and the shift of the dually eligible population's Medicaid costs to the federal government--may address these conflicting incentives, but all have strengths and weaknesses. With the aging baby boom generation and projected federal and state budget shortfalls, this issue will be a continuing focus of policymakers in the coming decades.     

Impact of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses on Quality Measures: The Missouri Quality Initiative Experience

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to review the impact of advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) on the quality measure (QM) scores of the 16 participating nursing homes of the Missouri Quality Initiative (MOQI) intervention. The MOQI was one of 7 program sites in the US, with specific interventions unique to each site tested for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services Innovations Center. While the goals of the MOQI for long-stay nursing home residents did not specifically include improvement of the QM scores, it was anticipated that improvement most likely would occur. Primary goals of the MOQI were to reduce the frequency of avoidable hospital admissions and readmissions; improve resident health outcomes; improve the process of transitioning between inpatient hospitals and nursing facilities; and reduce overall healthcare spending without restricting access to care or choice of providers.

Cost efficiency of nursing homes: do five-star quality ratings matter?

Nursing homes may respond to the pressure to reduce costs by reducing quality of care, so the two are related. This study examines the determinants of nursing home costs and cost efficiency, and investigates how various measures of nursing home care quality influence both of these. It applies a one-step stochastic frontier approach to a large panel of California nursing homes surveyed between 2009 and 2013. Quality is measured by three different ratings available on the Nursing Home Compare website: rating on quality measures, rating on the health inspection, and rating on staffing levels. Results show that the rating on quality measures, an outcome-based measure of quality, is inversely related to costs but unrelated to mean cost efficiency. In other words, a better rating on quality measures is associated with lower nursing home costs. The health inspection rating is not associated with either costs or mean cost efficiency. The rating for staffing levels, a structural measure of quality, is negatively associated with cost efficiency. These findings reveal that different measures of quality have different relationships with costs and cost efficiency. The findings suggest that better quality outcomes in nursing homes may be achievable with fewer resources and/or improved care procedures, which in turn should reduce nursing home costs.     

Malnutrition in Dutch health care: Prevalence,prevention, treatment,and quality indicators

ObjectiveIn most health care organizations there is still insufficient awareness for recognizing and treating malnourished patients. To gain more insight into nutritional care policies in Dutch health care organizations, this study investigated screening, treatment, and other quality indicators of nutritional care.MethodsIn 2007 a cross-sectional multicenter study was performed that included 20 255 patients (hospitals, n = 6021; nursing homes, n = 11 902; home care, n = 2332). A standardized questionnaire was used to study nutritional screening and treatment at the patient level and quality indicators at institutional and ward levels (e.g., malnutrition guidelines/protocols, nutritional education, and weighing policy).ResultsNutritional screening was performed more often in nursing homes (60.2%) than in hospitals (40.3%) and home care (13.9%, P < 0.001). In general, one in every five patients was malnourished, and nutritional treatment was applied in fewer than 50% of all malnourished patients in nursing homes, hospitals, and home care. At ward level nursing homes focused more on the quality of nutritional care than did hospitals and home care, especially with respect to controlling the use of nutritional guidelines (54.6%, P < 0.03), weighing at admission (82.9%, P < 0.01), and mealtime ambiance (91.8%, P < 0.01).ConclusionThis large-scale study shows that malnutrition is still a considerable problem in one of every five patients in all participating health care settings. It furthermore demonstrates that recognizing and treating malnutrition continues to be problematic. To target the problem of malnutrition adequately, more awareness is needed of the importance of nutritional screening, appropriate treatment, and other nutritional quality indicators.     

Performance-based budgeting in the public sector: an illustration from the VA health care system

This paper estimates frontier cost functions for US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals in FY2000 that are consistent with economic theory and explicitly account for cost differences across patients' risk, level of access to care, quality of care, and hospital-specific characteristics. Results indicate that on average VA hospitals in FY2000 operate at efficiency levels of 94%, as compared to previous studies on US private sector hospitals that average closer to 90% efficient. Using these cost frontiers, management systems potentially could be implemented to enhance the equitable allocation of the VA medical care global budget and systematically distribute funds across hospitals and networks. The paper also provides recommendations to improve the efficiency of delivering health care services applicable to public sector organizations.     

Quality management systems and clinical outcomes in Dutch nursing homes

The objective of the article is to explore the impact quality management systems and quality assurance activities in nursing homes have on clinical outcomes. The results are based on a cross-sectional study in 65 Dutch nursing homes. The management of the nursing homes as well as the residents (N = 12,377) participated in the study. Primary survey-data about the implementation of quality management systems and quality assurance activities were collected in 1994/1995 and in 1998, and were combined with information on resident characteristics and the prevalence of undesirable clinical outcomes. The results demonstrate that there are differences between nursing homes in the prevalence of undesirable clinical outcomes. In the nursing homes with the lowest scores, undesirable outcomes occur approximately 10 times less often than in nursing homes with the highest scores. The multi-level analysis has demonstrated that the differences in outcomes are mainly caused by differences between residents and, to some extent, also by differences between nursing homes. Resident characteristics explain 48% of the differences between residents and 72% of the differences between nursing homes. The size of the nursing home, the involvement of a client council and the implementation of a quality management system could explain a small part of the remaining variation in the number of undesirable outcomes. It seems that the implementation of a quality management system and the involvement of a client council had significant influence on the number of undesirable outcomes. Approximately 50% of the undesirable outcomes cannot be explained by the selected resident characteristics, the size of the nursing home and the implementation of quality management systems or quality assurance activities.     

Competitive spillovers across non-profit and for-profit nursing homes

The importance of non-profit institutions in the health care sector has generated a vast empirical literature examining quality differences between non-profit and for-profit nursing homes. Recent theoretical work has emphasized that much of this empirical literature is flawed in that previous studies rely solely on dummy variables to capture the effects of ownership rather than accounting for the share of non-profit nursing homes in the market. This analysis considers whether competitive spillovers from non-profits lead to higher quality in for-profit nursing homes. Using instrumental variables to account for the potential endogeneity of non-profit market share, this study finds that an increase in non-profit market share improves for-profit and overall nursing home quality. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that non-profits serve as a quality signal for uninformed nursing home consumers.     

Private sector health care organizations and essential public health services: potential effects on the practice of local public health.

This article focuses on the activities of eight private health care organizations undertaking public health and prevention activities. Few activities were motivated by or integrated into the business or operating strategy of the organizations and poor integration with the business strategy puts the long-term future of these activities in jeopardy. The lack of integrated activity can be attributed to: slow pace of managed care implementation; low penetrance of full-risk capitated reimbursement; and fragmented, competitive health care markets. Purchaser pressure, quality assurance requirements, community benefit standards, and government mandates are among the levers available to encourage such activities by the private sector.     

Make quality a key part of hospital compliance

Compliance officers in too many health care organizations fail to effectively utilize their facilities' quality management (QM) departments to develop, implement, and maintain compliance programs, experts say. QM departments can monitor and improve compliance-related processes, including documentation of medical necessity and eligibility determinations.     

Managing the Impact of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes and Long-Term Care Facilities: An Update

Older adults in nursing homes are at greatest risk of morbidity and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nursing home residents constituted one-third to more than half of all deaths during the early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this, widespread adaptation of infection prevention and control measures and the supply and use of personal protective equipment resulted in a significant decrease in nursing home infections and deaths. For nursing homes, the most important determinant of experiencing a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the first instance appears to be community-transmission levels (particularly with variants of concern), although nursing home size and quality, for-profit status, and sociodemographic characteristics are also important. Use of visitation bans, imposed to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on residents, must be delicately balanced against their impact on resident, friend or family, and staff well-being. The successful rollout of primary vaccination has resulted in a sharp decrease in morbidity and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 in nursing homes. However, emerging evidence suggests that vaccine efficacy may wane over time, and the use of a third or additional vaccine “booster” doses in nursing home residents restores protection afforded by primary vaccination. Ongoing monitoring of vaccine efficacy in terms of infection, morbidity, and mortality is crucial in this vulnerable group in informing ongoing SARS-CoV-2 vaccine boosting strategies. Here, we detail the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on nursing home residents and discuss important considerations in the management of nursing home SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks. We additionally examine the use of testing strategies, nonpharmacologic outbreak control measures and vaccination strategies in this cohort. Finally, the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the sector is reflected on as we emphasize the need for adoption of universal standards of medical care and integration with wider public health infrastructure in nursing homes in order to provide a safe and effective long-term care sector.     

Explaining regional variation in home care use by demand and supply variables

In the Netherlands, home care services like district nursing and personal assistance are provided by private service provider organizations and covered by private health insurance companies which bear legal responsibility for purchasing these services. To improve value for money, their procurement increasingly replaces fee-for-service payments with population based budgets. Setting appropriate population budgets requires adaptation to the legitimate needs of the population, whereas historical costs are likely to be influenced by supply factors as well, not all of which are necessarily legitimate. Our purpose is to explain home care costs in terms of demand and supply factors. This allows for adjusting historical cost patterns when setting population based budgets.Using expenses claims of 60 Dutch municipalities, we analyze eight demand variables and five supply variables with a multiple regression model to explain variance in the number of clients per inhabitant, costs per client and costs per inhabitant.Our models explain 69% of variation in the number of clients per inhabitant, 28% of costs per client and 56% of costs per inhabitant using demand factors. Moreover, we find that supply factors explain an additional 17–23% of variation. Predictors of higher utilization are home care organizations that are integrated with intramural nursing homes, higher competition levels among home care organizations and the availability of complementary services.     

Quality management in ambulatory care nursing and inpatient nursing in Germany. Specifics and current trends

In principle, quality management in nursing care follows the concepts used in medicine. Occasionally, professionals develop quality requirements and pursue quality improvements by using various tools. Specific features in Germany??s nursing care are related to the binding character of seven so-called expert standards and to mandatory, external quality assessments that began in 2009 and will be conducted and published yearly. Preliminary results of these assessments show that both home health agencies and nursing homes provide on average good quality nursing care. However, assessments also revealed a huge demand for improvements concerning the quality criteria and the procedures used to calculate the results. Currently, nursing scientists, providers of care, and long-term care insurance companies are controversially discussing that matter.