Quality awards—Correlation & better outcomes for your AL residents!
By Shauna Kapsner | September 8, 2023 | Assisted living providers
There’s proof! If you have already participated in and received a quality award, you may have already guessed. However, this program is more than just guessing and at its foundation is using data. So true to its Baldrige foundation, the National Quality Award Program is not guessing any longer. Earlier this year, the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) worked with Brown University to conduct an analysis of Silver and Gold Quality Award (QA) winners compared with those who are not recipients to determine outcomes of the QA journey. The
results of this analysis have been completed and demonstrate favorable results. Below is a quick summary of the findings.
Data on assisted living communities that received a Silver or Gold QA (from 2017-2020) were compared to that of those who did not receive a QA. Two different cohorts were created. The first was residents in an assisted living community on December 31, 2018, and the second was residents in an assisted living community on December 31, 2019. Each cohort’s outcomes were followed for one year. The analysis used Medicare claims data from 2018, 2019, and 2020 and examined five outcomes: hospitalizations, ambulatory care sensitive hospitalizations, emergency department visits, injury-related emergency department visits, and long-term nursing home transitions.
While rates on all outcomes were lower among awardees than non-awardees, only
emergency department use was statistically significantly lower among awardees vs non-awardees in both 2019 and 2020 (47.2% vs 50.7%). This means a greater than 5% lower relative risk of emergency department use for awardees vs non-awardees.
The results of the analysis suggest that Silver and Gold award recipients may have better outcomes compared to non-recipients.
While that language seems wishy-washy, let’s take care to note this was one analysis. One snapshot in time. That said, we would be remiss if we didn’t note the significance of these findings.
For those of you whose centers are already on their way to the Bronze, Silver, or Gold—WAY TO GO! We look forward to seeing great things from you! For those of you who are still on the fence…how about you choose a more comfortable seat in the applicant chair. Please see the
QA Portal Resource Center for information on logging in, access to your center, corporate account administrator, examiner applications, and submitting your award application. Questions? Please contact Shauna Kapsner at the Association office, or you can email the program directly at:
qualityaward@ahca.org.
Shauna Kapsner | Director of Education & Events |
skapsner@careproviders.org | 952-851-2490