Regulators say nursing home quality processes improved with corporate integrity agreements

Nursing home companies forced to begin corporate integrity agreements were all found to improve the way they pursued quality of care, according to government investigators. They looked at 15 corporations’ efforts from 2000 to 2005 and found that each had created or upgraded written policies and structures, and had monitoring tools in place.

A representative from each company could name at least one positive effect of the corporate agreements, and often many more, according to a report posted Wednesday by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. The improvements most often noted in documents studied and interviews with company executives were better tracking of quality care and more standardized care processes.

The agreements are meant to coax providers to better develop, sustain and monitor their own quality processes. The full OIG report is available here.