Six new quality measures for skilled nursing facilities will be rolled out by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services beginning in April.
The new Medicare claims-based measures, which will be added to Nursing Home Compare, include the percentage of short-stay residents who have had an outpatient emergency room visit, percentage of short-stay residents who were re-hospitalized after SNF admission, and percentage of short-stay residents who were successfully discharged to the community.
Measures based on MDS data include percentage of short-stay residents who made an improvement in physical function, percentage of long-stay residents whose ability to move independently worsened, and percentage of long-stay residents who receive anti-anxiety or hypnotic medication.
All measures except the one on anti-anxiety medication will be phased into the Five-Stay Quality Ratings system over a nine-month period, beginning in July.
The new measures will be based on data from August 2014 to the beginning of July 2015, CMS officials said.
From the April 01, 2016 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News