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Nursing Home Compare Star Rankings and the Variation in Potentially Preventable Emergency Department Visits and Hospital Admissions.

ABSTRACT: Measurement of the quality of US health care increasingly emphasizes clinical outcomes over clinical processes. Nursing Home Compare Star Ratings are provided by Medicare to help select better nursing home care. The authors determined the rates and types of 2 important clinical outcomes-potentially preventable hospital admissions and potentially preventable emergency department (ED) visits-for a subset of 439,011 long-term nursing homes residents residing in 12,883 nursing homes throughout the United States over a 2-year period (2010-2011) and compared them with the Star Rating system. This study found that (1) the likelihood of potentially preventable events increases with increasing burden of chronic illness, (2) the principle reasons for hospital admissions and ED visits (eg, septicemia, pneumonia, confusion, gastroenteritis) are not part of existing nursing home quality measures, (3) the rate of potentially preventable admissions and ED visits for nursing homes residents varies greatly both across and within states, with 5 states having in excess of 20% more than the national average for both, and (4) the Nursing Home Compare Stars measure has limited correlation with rates of these potentially preventable events. Nursing Home Compare Star rankings could benefit by incorporating outcomes measures such as preventable hospitalizations and ED visits, and by comparing nursing home performance on results drawn from across states rather than within them. Such reform could better help users find nursing homes of higher quality and stimulate homes to improve quality in ways that benefit residents.

SUBMITTER: Fuller RL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6459266 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Nursing Home Compare Star Rankings and the Variation in Potentially Preventable Emergency Department Visits and Hospital Admissions.

Fuller Richard L RL Goldfield Norbert I NI Hughes John S JS McCullough Elizabeth C EC

Population health management 20180730 2

Measurement of the quality of US health care increasingly emphasizes clinical outcomes over clinical processes. Nursing Home Compare Star Ratings are provided by Medicare to help select better nursing home care. The authors determined the rates and types of 2 important clinical outcomes-potentially preventable hospital admissions and potentially preventable emergency department (ED) visits-for a subset of 439,011 long-term nursing homes residents residing in 12,883 nursing homes throughout the U ...[more]

PMID: 30059266

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Migrant health has become an essential part of public health. According to the World Health Organization, many health systems in Europe have not yet adapted adequately to the needs of asylum-seekers, which might result in untimely and inefficient health care for asylum-seeking patients. The aim of this study was to assess the number of preventable hospital admissions and emergency department visits in asylum-seeking and non-asylum-seeking pediatric patients. METHODS:This is a retrospective, hospital-based study. The study was done at the University Children's Hospital Basel in Switzerland. Patients admitted or presenting to the emergency department were included and split into the groups of asylum-seeking and non-asylum-seeking patients. All admissions and emergency-department visits were extracted from the administrative electronic health records from 1st Jan 2016-31st Dec 2017. The main outcome was the proportion of admissions due to ambulatory-care-sensitive conditions (which refer to conditions for which admission can be prevented by early interventions in primary care) in asylum-seeking and non-asylum-seeking patients. Ambulatory-care-sensitive conditions were defined by a validated list of ICD-10 codes. The secondary objective was to assess the number of preventable emergency-department visits by asylum-seeking patients defined as proportion of visits with a non-urgent triage score. RESULTS:A total of 75'199 hospital visits were included, of which 63'405 were emergency department visits and 11'794 were admissions. Ambulatory-care-sensitive conditions accounted for 12.1% (18/149) of asylum-seeking and 10.9% (1270/11645) of non-asylum seeking patients' admissions. Among the emergency department visits by asylum-seeking patients, non-urgent conditions accounted for 82.2% (244/297). CONCLUSIONS:Admissions due to ambulatory-care-sensitive conditions are comparable in asylum-seeking and non-asylum-seeking children, suggesting few delayed presentations to ambulatory care facilities. Strategies to prevent non-urgent visits at pediatric emergency department facilities are needed.

Project description:Importance:The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Five-Star measure for nursing homes is designed with input from expert panels about the importance of multiple quality indicators. Consumers may assign different values to these indicators, creating different 5-star ratings. Objective:To compare nursing homes' rankings based on the CMS Five-Star measure with rankings based on consumers' judgment about the importance of the same quality indicators. Design, Setting, and Participants:In this quality improvement study, CMS Five-Star data were linked with a measure calculated from CMS quality indicators and consumer values obtained from a national survey. Data covered the last quarter of 2016 and the first three quarters of 2017. The study included 10?676 nursing homes, comprising 69.8% of those with reported Five-Star measures. The national survey included adults, either nursing home residents or their family members who reported being familiar with the quality of care their relative received. Data analysis was performed from January 2019 to February 2020. Main Outcomes and Measures:The contingent valuation method was administered via the survey to obtain consumers' relative values of the quality indicators, and statistical analyses were used to create the contingent valuation measure. Agreement in nursing home rankings was assessed using the Five-Star measure, which is based on weights developed by expert panels, compared with rankings based on the contingent valuation measure. Results:Among 10?676 study nursing homes with a mean (SD) of 119.4 (59.4) beds, 7845 (73.5%) were for profit, 6424 (61.8%) were part of a chain, and 8009 (75.0%) were urban. The 4310 survey respondents (mean [SD] age, 39.9 [15.6] years; 1143 [26.5%] men; 3448 [80%] white) included mostly family members (3879 participants [90.0%]). The Pearson correlation coefficient (0.65) and weighted ? statistics (0.48) indicated only moderate agreement between ranking of nursing homes' performance by the 2 measures and disagreement on ranking for approximately one-half of the nursing homes. Conclusions and Relevance:Current nursing home report cards might not reflect consumers' values and the relative importance consumers place on each of the quality indicators that compose the overall Five-Star measure. Quality report cards might be more relevant to consumers by augmenting the Five-Star measure with a measure reflecting consumers' preferences. It is unknown whether these conclusions are generalizable to other report cards, such as Hospital and Home Health Compare, without conducting similar studies for these report cards.

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Project description:IntroductionOntario ambulances are restricted from patient transportation to sub-acute levels of care when these facilities may be more suitable than emergency departments for non-emergent conditions. There is no known patient classification specifically constructed to inform ED diversion protocols and guidance for sub-acute centre transportation for primary care-like patient conditions.ObjectiveTo construct a novel patient classification of potentially preventable emergency department visits following transport by ambulance, and analyse patient-level characteristic associations with this classification based in Ontario secondary data.Methods and analysisThe Primary Care-like Ambulance transports following Response for 911-Emergencies (PriCARE) patient classification will be constructed using a two-phase RAND/UCLA modified Delphi design. All experts included are physicians with relevant experience in emergency and/or primary care in Ontario. The first phase of the study will determine consensus of the expert committee on which ED interventions performed on patients with non-emergent acuities could be conducted in sub-acute healthcare centres. The second phase will assess consensus of which patient, hospital and acuity factors are most appropriate to be incorporated into a PriCARE classification. We will also investigate secondary outcomes on consensus of which ED interventions could be transferred to a paramedic context given an expanded scope of practice and patient-level characteristics of PriCARE classified individuals.Ethics and disseminationThis study received a research ethics board exemption waiver from the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board; review reference 2020-11451-GRA. Results will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at relevant conferences. The results will be shared with Ontario paramedic services and governing institutions. This study will be used to inform patient classification protocols and clinical decision tools for ambulances to transport to sub-acute healthcare centres.Trial registration numberISRCTN22901977.

Dataset Information

Nursing Home Compare Star Rankings and the Variation in Potentially Preventable Emergency Department Visits and Hospital Admissions.

Publications

Nursing Home Compare Star Rankings and the Variation in Potentially Preventable Emergency Department Visits and Hospital Admissions.

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