David Kyllo

A new quality initiative program unveiled Wednesday targets off-label use of antipsychotics, hospital readmissions and staff turnover in assisted living communities.

The National Center for Assisted Living rolled out a new website for the initiative, complete with tools to help assisted living facilities implement their own quality improvement programs.

The initiative is intended to be the assisted living counterpart to the American Health Care Association’s nursing home quality improvement program that launched in February, NCAL Executive Director Dave Kyllo told McKnight’s.

“We knew that we’d have to tweak the four goals slightly for assisted living compared to skilled nursing facilities,” Kyllo said. He said that NCAL worked with assisted living nurses to complete the task.

“We don’t have as much data on the off-label use of antipsychotics for dementia in assisted living, but we want to do everything possible to reduce psychotropics and stay ahead of the curve on best practices,” Kyllo said.

The other primary goals of the NCAL quality improvement program are:

·      Safely reduce hospital readmissions by 15% by March of 2015

·      Keep nursing staff turnover below 30% each year until at least March 2015

·      Maintain the number of customers who would recommend the community to others at or above 90% by March 2015

·      Reduce off-label antipsychotic use by 15% by December 2013.

Click here for more information on the quality initiative and its tools.