New Quality Care Measures for Nursing Home Compare Website

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (MDS) has announced they will be incorporating six new nursing home quality measures beginning in July in an effort to better assess nursing home resident care.

The agency believes the measure will benefit consumers by providing important for families choosing a nursing home for the first time, as well as those seeking information to use when speaking to nursing home staff or learning more about the quality of care a loved one is receiving.

The new measures will collect additional data to help evaluate quality measure scores published on the Nursing Home Compare website. This website is a useful tool for anyone who wants to compare nursing homes by looking at performance in health inspections, staffing and quality measures.

Nursing Home Compare provides ratings about various nursing homes using data from Medicare claims and MDS. The ratings are compiled using one to five star calculations.

The new measures include:

• The percentage of short stay nursing home residents who were discharged from the hospital and returned to the community.
• The percentage of short stay residents who re-entered the hospital after a nursing home admission.
• The percentage of short stay nursing home residents who improved in function.
• The percentage of long stay residents who were given antianxiety or hypnotic medication.
• The percentage of long stay residents whose independent mobility worsened.
• The percentage of short stay residents who end up with an outpatient emergency visit.

If you are concerned about the quality of care your loved one is receiving in a nursing home, contact the skilled nursing home abuse attorneys at the law office of PKSD today review you legal options.

Call 877-877-2228 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form to get started.