Quality improvement organizations make a positive impact on nursing home quality, a new study funded by the government finds.
Nursing home, home health, and physician providers that received assistance from QIOs saw greater improvement on 18 of 20 quality measures compared to providers that were not recruited, according to study results. They appeared in the online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine this week. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid funded the study.
The study compared performance data for 41 quality measures collected from August 2002 to July 2005. Nursing homes that worked most closely with QIOs showed greater improvement in all five measures, including substantial reductions in patients’ chronic and post-acute-care pain and the use of restraints, the study said. Other studies of QIOs have shown they have had varying effects.
For more on the study, see .
