Caring for the Vulnerable Elderly: Are Available Quality Indicators Appropriate?

Association of claims-based quality of care measures with outcomes among community-dwelling vulnerable elders

BACKGROUND

Few studies examine the link between measured process of care and outcome.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the relationship of claims-based assessment of process of care to subsequent function and survival.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study using claims from 1999 to assess performance on 41 quality indicators (QIs) from the Assessing Care of Vulnerable Elders (ACOVE) measurement set on functional decline and death in 2000.

SETTING

Community-dwelling individuals.

SUBJECTS

All persons ≥75 years enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid in 19 California counties in 1998 and 1999 who received In Home Supportive Services.

MEASURES

Quality of care index, activities of daily living, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) need indices, mortality.

RESULTS

Total 21,310 persons were eligible for a mean of 7.1 QIs; and received 46% of recommended care. The ADL index increased from 8.1 to 11.6 between baseline and follow-up. The IADL index increased from 13.6 to 14.1. Fifteen percent of the cohort died in 2000. After accounting for number of QIs triggered, baseline function and other covariates, better quality was associated with better function at follow-up. Ten percent better quality was associated at follow-up with 0.21 lower ADL need score [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.25-0.17], 0.022 lower IADL need score (95% CI, 0.032-0.013), and lower odds of death (0.91; 95% CI, 0.89 to 0.93).

CONCLUSIONS

Routinely collected data implementing ACOVE measures for community vulnerable elders generate quality scores that are directly related to patient functional and survival outcomes. These findings suggest that population-based assessment of care is feasible for vulnerable older persons.

Clinical practice in nursing homes as a key for progress

With the aging of the world's population there has become a major need for the development of nursing homes throughout the world. While some countries provide high quality care for the disabled elderly, in others this is not the case. Education of a medical director has been shown to improve the quality of the nursing home. Physicians need to have knowledge of how to implement continuous quality improvement and culture change. Key medical issues include moving to a restraint free environment, subsyndromal delirium, behavioral disturbances, weight loss, pain management, pressure ulcers, falls, hip fractures, polypharmacy, depression and frailty.

The basis for improving and reforming long-term care. Part 4: identifying meaningful improvement approaches (segment 2)

While many aspects of nursing home care have improved over time, numerous issues persist. Presently, a potpourri of approaches and a push to "fix" the problem have overshadowed efforts to correctly define the problems and identify their diverse causes. This fourth and final article in the series (divided between last month's issue and this one) recommends strategies to make sense of improvement and reform efforts. This month's concluding segment covers additional proposed approaches. Despite the challenges of the current environment, all of the proposed strategies could potentially be applied with little or no delay. Despite having brought vast increases in knowledge, the research effort may be losing its traction as a formidable force for meaningful change. It is necessary to rethink the questions being asked and the scope of answers being sought. A shift to overcoming implementation challenges is needed. In addition, it is essential to address issues of jurisdiction (the apparent "ownership" of assessment and decision making over patient problems or body parts) and reductionism (the excessive management of these issues and problems without proper context) that result in fragmented and problematic care. Issues of knowledge and skill also need to be addressed, with greater emphasis on key generic and technical competencies of staff and practitioners, in addition to factual knowledge. There is a need to rethink the approach to measuring performance and trying to improve quality of care and services. There are significant limits to trying to use quality measures to improve outcomes and performance. Ultimately, vast improvement is needed in applying care principles and practices, independent of regulatory sources. Reimbursement needs to be revamped so that it helps promote care that is consistent with human biology and other key concepts. Finally, improving long-term care will require a coordinated societal effort. All social institutions and health care settings need to address their own shortcomings and contribute constructively in order to improve and reform nursing homes and health care generally. It is not helpful to scapegoat nursing homes for what are far more universal problems of care, practice, and performance.

The basis for improving and reforming long-term care. Part 3: essential elements for quality care

There is a pervasive effort to reform nursing homes and improve the care they provide. Many people are trying to educate and inform nursing homes and their staff, practitioners, and management about what to do and not do, and how to do it. But only some of that advice is sound. After more than 3 decades of such efforts, and despite evidence of improvement in many facets of care, there are still many issues. Despite improvements, the overall public, political, and health professional perception of nursing homes is often still negative. To date, no tactic or approach has succeeded nationwide in consistently facilitating good performance or correcting poor performance. Only some of the current efforts to try to improve nursing home quality and to measure it are on target. Many of the measures used to assess the quality of performance have limited value in guiding overall quality improvement. Before we can reform nursing homes, we must understand what needs to be reformed. This series of articles has focused on what is needed for safe, effective, efficient, and person-centered care. Ultimately, all efforts to improve nursing home care quality must be matched against the critical elements needed to provide desirable care. Based on the discussions in the previous 2 articles, this third article in this 4-part series considers 5 key elements of care processes and practices that can help attain multiple desirable quality objectives.