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.