|
Staffing Goals Part of Nursing Home Quality Campaign
September 11, 2006
A national campaign backed by a broad-based coalition of long-term care organizations aims to improve quality of care and quality of life in nursing homes. The campaign has eight measurable goals, two of which concern direct-care staffing.
Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes, a two-year campaign, was launched this month. Participating nursing homes must commit to working on at least three of the eight goals, which include focus on resident satisfaction, workforce stability, and the resident-caregiver relationship. Field offices such as quality improvement organizations and state nursing home associations will provide technical assistance and guidance to providers. Consumers also will be asked to participate by helping to create awareness of the campaign and what constitutes good quality.
The campaign's seventh goal is that more than 80 percent of all nursing homes should measure staff turnover and develop action plans to improve staff retention by September 2008. It also states that the national average for turnover among CNAs and other caregiving staff should be reduced by 15 percent. The eighth goal is that the majority of the nation's nursing homes - at least one-third of them by September 2008 - employ consistent assignment in order to ''maximize quality as well as resident and staff relationships.'' Consistent assignment is defined as having a caregiver caring for the same person on at least 85 percent of his/her shifts.
Founding organizations behind the campaign include the Alliance for Nursing Home Quality, the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aged, and the American Health Care Association, as well as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform.
Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Specialist
Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute
< back to news |
