As we know the major drivers in our industry include: Regulatory Compliance, Quality of Care, Quality of Life, and
Safe Environment. Knowing that our industry continues to be heavily regulated, I am sure that administrators and their teams continue to work hard on the upcoming changes and new Quality Initiatives mandated by Centers of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and other Long Term Care stakeholders. Long term care professionals and administrators continue to place a priority on providing quality care of our residents.

Just to highlight a few of the upcoming changes and Quality Initiatives that are mandated by CMS, and that facility administrators and their teams are preparing for. (1) Five Star Quality rating – there are additional Quality Measures that have been added to both the long stay residents and short stay residents; also Payroll-Base Journal; (2) Reduction in Hospital Readmission – some facilities are coming up with innovative ways to partner with hospitals for better outcomes in reducing transfers to the hospitals; (3) QAPI – Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement – at this time almost all facilities should have converted their QAA to QAPI.

So the question is are we prepared for these upcoming changes and additions to what we do?

This tool is found on the Medicare website, http://www.medicare.gov/homehealthcompare/search.aspx . For those who have accessed the main Medicare website (www.medicare.gov) you do know that there is a mountain of information on the site. I believe I can safely say that people need help sometimes, navigating the site for the precise information they are looking for. Also because of the nature of the information, they also need to be very careful in interpreting some of the information and/or data presented. READ MORE