New Quality Measures Added to CMS “Nursing Home Compare”

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently added six new nursing home quality measures to its Nursing Home Compare (NHC) website.  For the first time, three of the new quality measures include Medicare claims data submitted by hospitals, rather than just nursing home self-reported data:  % of short-stay residents successfully discharged to the community, % of short-stay residents who had an outpatient emergency department visit, and % of short-stay residents rehospitalized after a nursing home admission.  The other three new quality measures are:  % of short-stay residents who made improvements in function, % of long-stay residents whose ability to move independently worsened, and % of long-stay residents who received an antianxiety or hypnotic medication.  NHC is a user-friendly website that provides “detailed information about every Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the country.”  CMS launched NHC in 1998, added health inspection and staffing quality measures to it in 2003, and implemented a Five Star Nursing Home Quality Rating System on it in 2008.  Each nursing home has an overall rating, with 1 star indicating much below average quality and 5 stars indicating much above average quality, as well as ratings for health inspections, staffing, and quality measures.  Since 2008, CMS has continuously added information to NHC, “including facility ownership information, sanctions against nursing homes, and the full text of nursing home inspection reports.”  For additional information, see the 4/27/16 New Quality Measures on Nursing Home Compare factsheet.