New Goals, New Partnerships: Next Steps for a National Effort to Advance Excellence in Nursing Homes

Award Amount: $200,053
Approval Date: April 14, 2009
Start Date: May 1, 2009
End Date: October 31, 2010
Massachusetts Senior Care Foundation
2310 Washington Street, Suite 300
Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts 02462
Principal Investigator: Alice Bonner, Ph.D., R.N.

Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes, a coordinated, coalition-based nationwide effort to improve the quality of nursing home care, has demonstrated its effectiveness over the last two years. In addition to consolidating and updating the eight current goals, the campaign’s national steering committee has recommended the pursuit of two new goals: promoting advance care planning and gauging job satisfaction among nursing home staff. In addition, the committee has recommended aligning goals with the Medicare-sponsored Quality Improvement Organizations’ new work objectives, which include improving care transitions. This grant will enable Advancing Excellence to develop new metrics for measuring progress toward goals, test the practicability of new goals in three states prior to national rollout, and prepare for goal implementation. It will also support collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Fund-supported effort to reduce rehospitalizations.