Several Alabama nursing homes are meeting the health care quality goal set by the National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC).

According to MDS data processed by the Alabama Quality Assurance Foundation (AQAF), 30 Alabama skilled nursing care centers have achieved a Quality Measure Composite Score of 6.00 or less. The score is comprised of the 13 long-term care quality measures published on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Nursing Home Compare website. It is calculated using an “opportunity model” which determines how much the center improved and how much of an opportunity it has for further improvement. The lower the score, the better the center is performing.

“Improving these quality measures is going to improve the overall experience of nursing home residents because it leads to better outcomes” AQAF Performance Improvement Advisor Beth Greene said. “We hope this leads to families expressing greater satisfaction with their loved one’s care. Because the ultimate goal to improve the quality of life and health care for the resident.”

AQAF logoThe 30 centers achieving a Composite Score of 6.00 or lower are:

Using the Composite Score for Quality Improvement

The Composite Score helps a nursing center determine the which quality measures it is performing well on and the ones that need improvement.

“The composite score provides a way for nursing homes to look at quality from a systems perspective, or take a ‘big picture’ view, and what might need to be improved in their system to help them provide even better care in the future,” Greene said.

The 13 long-term care quality measures cover the full range of care:

  • Percent of residents with one or more falls with major injury
  • Percent of residents with a urinary tract infection
  • Percent of residents who self-report moderate or severe pain
  • Percent of high-risk resident with pressure ulcer
  • Percent of low-risk residents who lose control of their bowels or bladder
  • Percent of residents with a catheter inserted or left in bladder
  • Percent of residents physically restrained
  • Percent of residents whose need for help with Activities of Daily Living has increased
  • Percent of residents who lose too much weight
  • Percent of residents who have depressive symptoms
  • Percent of residents who received antipsychotic medications
  • Percent of residents assessed and appropriately given the season influenza vaccine
  • Percent of residents assessed and appropriately given the pneumococcal vaccine

“Once they know which areas need to improve, they can then design a process or system that can lead to improvement in that quality measure,” Greene explained. “This helps us address a quality measure on the front end so the improvement is sustainable.”

Each quarter, the 113 Alabama skilled nursing centers in the NNHQCC participate in a virtual training session that teaches them how to improve one of the quality measures. Then, the centers spend the next three months applying what they learned to their day-to-day operation.

NNHQCC’s goal is for 170 Alabama skilled nursing centers to voluntarily participate in the program and for 50% or more of those to achieve a composite score of 6.00 or lower. Centers interested in participating should contact Beth Greene at AQAF. The NNHQCC ends in July 2019.

About the Alabama Quality Assurance Foundation

The Alabama Quality Assurance Foundation is a member of the five-state atom Alliance, a Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO). For more information, visit www.aqaf.com.