hroughout much of corporate America, measuring success is simple: check the bottom line. While maintaining a quality product or service and positive image are also vital, the bottom line rules the day. And while that’s true of the long-term care industry, there is also a human element. Each day, there are residents who need quality, dignified care. Which raises the question: How should a facility measure success?
In this month’s cover feature, “Preventing Quality of Care Citations,” James R. Wooddell, BS, MS, MBA, DBA, discusses how a proactive, goal-based event reporting and tracking system can reduce a facility’s citations and optimize its delivery of services. Measuring success, in other words, by the improvement in the quality of care for the health of both the facility and its residents.
In the “Executive Summary” column, Marilyn Ellicott, RN, CPHQ, a senior clinician for Misys Healthcare Systems who has worked in software for development for 10 years, discusses her impressions thus far of the development of Pay for Performance (P4P) in home care and how it will ultimately affect long-term care. Among the issues that remain to be seen are how P4P will be structured, how it will affect both the bottom line and the delivery of care, and—returning to the theme—how it will measure success.
The latter is the second in a series of articles on topics scheduled for presentation at the second annual Symposium on Regulatory Issues for Management in Long-Term Care (SORIM LTC). Next issue, look for an article on risk management to prevent accidents as it relates to Federal Tags 323 and 324 (accidents and supervision).
Also included in this issue is the second article in the “MIST Therapy® System: Thoughts on Therapy” series, a report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the rise of generic medication use in long-term care, and articles on the following topics: clarifying confusion on support surfaces, a new billing policy for blood glucose tests, knowing the ABCs of vitamins, and technology to foster resident peace and serenity.
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