On March 13, AHCA/NCAL announced new goals as part of its nationwide, multi-year initiative to further improve quality in long term and post-acute care centers and communities. Building on the progress of the profession over the last six years, the Quality Initiative will challenge member providers to achieve ambitious targets in key areas by March 2021.

The three-year goals for skilled nursing centers are aligned with top priorities for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and federal mandates that link financial outcomes to quality performance. They are:

• Safely reduce long-stay and short-stay hospitalizations by improving 10 percent—or maintain a rate of 10 percent or less;
• Improve functional outcomes (self-care and mobility) by 15 percent;
• Improve long-stay and short-stay satisfaction by 10 percent—or achieve a rate of 90 percent or greater; and
• Safely reduce the off-label use of antipsychotics by 10 percent—or maintain a rate of 8 percent or less in long-stay residents, and maintain a rate of 1 percent or less in short-stay residents.

The three-year goals for assisted living communities are:

• Reduce turnover among direct care staff­ to a rate of 50 percent or less;
• At least 90 percent of customers (residents and/or families) are satisfied with their experience;
• Safely reduce hospital readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharges to a rate of 20 percent or less; and
• Safely reduce the off­-label use of antipsychotics to a rate of 15 percent or less.

The Quality Initiative is also inspiring the state-based, assisted living profession to collect and report national quality data without a government mandate. While overall progress is not yet viable to report, the number of assisted living communities self-reporting to AHCA/NCAL is growing.

To monitor progress among skilled nursing centers nationwide, AHCA will use CMS measures to track progress on antipsychotic usage, and measures endorsed by the independent rating organization National Quality Forum (NQF) to track progress on re-hospitalizations, functional outcomes and customer satisfaction. The assisted living goals will use measures developed by AHCA/NCAL.

To help achieve the goals, AHCA/NCAL encourages members to access free resources on ahcancalED at educate.ahcancal.org.

Members are also encouraged to view and track their progress using AHCA/NCAL’s LTC Trend Tracker, a web-based, data collection and benchmarking tool.  Not sure if your organization uses LTC Trend Tracker? Email help@ltctrendtracker.com and request the name of your account administrator. 

To learn more about the AHCA/NCAL Quality Initiative, visit qualityinitiative.ahcancal.org (SNFs) or qualityinitiative.ncal.org (ALs).