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New data released by the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes campaign continue to build a body of evidence that show the Campaign is helping to make a positive difference in the lives of nursing home residents and staff.
The data indicate that specific areas of improvements in care quality occurred, specifically:
• Reduction in the number of pressure ulcers;
• Reduction in the use of physical restraints;
• Improved pain management for both long-term (greater than 90 days) and short-term stay (less than 90 days) nursing home residents.
Faster improvement occurred at participating nursing homes that set targets for care quality goals as opposed to nursing homes that did not. A major focus of the Campaign is to encourage nursing homes to set quality targets at their facilities as a way to monitor and measure quality improvement efforts.
“We estimate that in the course of the Campaign, there were 1.8 million fewer days where a resident at high risk for developing a pressure sore was suffering from one. Also, during this time, we estimate there were 8.5 million fewer days where a nursing home resident used a physical restraint,” said Mary Jane Koren, M.D., M.P.H., chair of the Advancing Excellence coalition and assistant vice president of The Commonwealth Fund in New York.
“To our coalition members, the data indicate that Advancing Excellence is making a difference in the lives of thousands of nursing home residents,” stated Koren. “When a nursing home’s staff use the care processes advanced by the Campaign, it contributes to better, sustainable and consistent quality care.”
Data show progress for all four clinical goals of the Campaign and even greater absolute progress* for nursing homes participating in the Campaign. The nation’s nursing home performance improved throughout the Campaign, and most notably met the national Advancing Excellence objective for reducing use of restraints (less than 5 percent) and nearly so for chronic care pain (less than 4 percent). Campaign participants who selected these goals to work on improved the most. The next phase of the Campaign will continue to focus on reducing pressure ulcers and pain.
To view the full report of national and state-by-state data through the third quarter of 2008, visit the Campaign Progress section on the Advancing Excellence website.
Since its inception in 2006, nearly 7,400 nursing homes have signed on to participate in the Advancing Excellence campaign, which represents 46.9 percent of nursing homes in America. In addition, more than 2,100 consumers, who play a critical role in contributing to the overall quality of life and quality of care at nursing homes, participate in the campaign.
*Absolute improvement is the improvement measured by the actual number.
About Nursing Homes
At any given time, approximately 1.5 million Americans reside in the nation’s 16,400 nursing homes. More than 3 million Americans rely on services provided by a nursing home at some point during the year. The Advancing Excellence campaign believes those individuals, and an even larger number of their family members and relatives, must be able to count on nursing homes to provide care of consistently high quality.
About Advancing Excellence
Initiated in 2006 as the first voluntary, national effort in nursing homes to measure quality by setting measurable and quality-focused goals, the Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes campaign has worked diligently over the past two years to achieve improvements in care and quality of life for nursing home residents across the country. The Campaign has a broad coalition that includes long-term care providers, caregivers, medical and quality improvement experts, consumers, government agencies, foundations etc. The campaign is also supported by an established infrastructure of Local Area Networks for Excellence (LANEs), which exist in every state.
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