MU Expertise Tapped for Federal Evaluation of Nursing Home Quality Measures
A clinical instructor for the University of Missouri’s Sinclair School of Nursing is helping the federal government improve the way it measures the quality of care in nursing homes.
Carol Siem, MSN, RN, BC, GNP, was selected to serve on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Technical Expert Panel (TEP) on nursing home quality measures. The group of long-term-care experts met October 26 and 27 in Baltimore, MD to discuss quality measures published by CMS to assist the public in evaluating nursing homes nationwide.
The quality measures are used in an online comparison tool developed by CMS to help the public find and compare nursing homes in their communities. Some of these quality measures include the rate of incontinence among residents, the rate of residents becoming more depressed and the rate of residents who decline in their activities of daily living (feeding themselves, turning themselves in bed, etc.).
Finding the best nursing home for a loved one can be stressful for relatives, who often must weigh their options and make a decision in a short period of time. The online comparison tool is one way for families to evaluate nursing homes in their communities, but Siem stresses that in-person visits must also be done before a final decision is made.
“The information provided in the online comparison tool can get dated fairly quickly and many nursing homes change for the better,” said Siem. “The online tool is just a small piece of making a decision.”
To maintain the online tool’s usefulness, TEP panel members are working to determine whether the information the tool provides is useful to the public, whether the measures gives a true picture of the care given and whether the data gathered is as accurate as it can be.
“We want to know: Does it reflect the quality of care in a nursing home?” said Siem.
A team leader for Quality Improvement Program of Missouri (QIPMO), Siem is one of five nurses who assist the state’s nursing homes in improving the care they provide. She also serves as chair of the American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators (AANAC).