| In November 2002, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(CMS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
publicly released a report of quality measures for every Medicare
and Medicaid certified nursing home. CMS’ Nursing Home Quality
Initiative (NHQI) compares individual nursing home scores
with state and national averages.
There are measures for chronic
care and post acute care. This national quality improvement
initiative follows a CMS pilot study of six states (CO, FL, OH,
MD, RI & WA) released in April 2002.
Read an updated
explanation of the Enhanced Quality Measures Here.
As part of the CMS Public
Reporting Quality Initiative, the Quality Improvement
Organizations (QIOs) in each state will assist nursing homes to
improve the quality of care related to these measures. Louisiana
Health Care Review, Inc. (LHCR) serves as the QIO for Louisiana
and will help the public understand and use the measures in
assessing nursing home facilities. Under contract with CMS,
LHCR- as a cost-free consultant- will provide nursing homes with
materials and technical support needed to refine their clinical
and organizational systems.
CMS placed
advertisements in newspapers across the nation. The ads will
provide the public with information to make informed decisions
on choosing a nursing home. Each advertisement will list the
names of nursing homes with their scores on three different
quality measures. It is not known which nursing homes will be
listed or which of the quality measures will be scored on the
advertisement. Sample ads from the pilot states, are posted on
the CMS Web site at
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/providers/nursinghomes/nhi/printads/.
Please reference
information posted to Medicare’s Web site
http://www.medicare.gov for more on
the Nursing Home Quality Initiative.
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