Public-private group issues recommendations to HHS on long-term care performance measures

Federal performance measures for nursing homes should reflect the quality of care provided in these facilities and should not be driven only by the goal of aligning performance measures among different care settings, according to a recent report from the National Quality Forum.

In the report issued Friday, a group of healthcare stakeholders from the public and private sectors laid out its second set of recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services regarding which evaluation measures should be in future rulemaking.

The public-private group, known as the Measure Applications Partnership (MAP), defined 13 core concepts for measuring the performance of post-acute and long-term care providers. These include patient safety measures related to falls, pressure ulcers and adverse drug events; care coordination measures related to transition planning; and cost/access measures related to avoidable admissions.

The report also identified a number of core long-term care performance areas lacking a performance measure, including a medication management measure related to the use of antipsychotics.

Click here for the full report.