AHCA Praises Creation Of National Database Benchmarking Customer Satisfaction In Nation's Nursing Homes

Main Category: Seniors / Aging
Also Included In: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 27 Jun 2006 - 0:00 PDT

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The American Health Care Association (AHCA) is pleased with the release of new nursing home customer satisfaction data assessing care quality in America's nursing homes. The benchmarking data will serve as an effective new tool for nursing homes to improve care quality for our nation's most vulnerable populations - the frail, elderly and disabled.

"The new data represents an historic achievement, and provides our profession with the baseline data we need to build on our success in improving residents' quality of care and quality of life," stated Bruce Yarwood, President and CEO of AHCA. "Customer satisfaction data - the voice of the health care consumer - is a very valuable tool in a facility's quality assessment process. The more results-based information we have to quantify the quality of care our members provide, more effective we can be in continuing to improve the quality - and satisfaction rate - of long term care and the services provided. "

The report based on 2005 data summarizes key findings from 70,966 surveys compiled by researchers at My InnerView, Inc., an applied research company, based in Wisconsin, that promotes quality improvement through evidence-based management, using state-of-the-art technology and the internet. (The report is available at http://www.myinnerview.com.)

This first-of-its-kind national measurement of customer satisfaction in long term care is based on data collected from 2,224 nursing facilities in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of the 70,966 respondents, 89% were family members of residents in nursing facilities, and 11% were residents themselves. My InnerView expects the 2006 survey report to include data from more than 4,000 nursing facilities.

The report highlights major findings based on how long term care residents and families assess three primary factors in customer satisfaction: the quality of life, quality of care, and quality of service in his/her nursing home. In addition, the survey asked respondents about their overall satisfaction with their facility and whether they would recommend it to others as a place to receive care.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of the respondents rated overall satisfaction with their nursing home as "excellent" or "good," while only 3.4% rated their overall satisfaction as "poor." Eighty-two percent (82%) of the respondents would recommend the facility to others as "excellent" or "good."

The profession will use the satisfaction survey results as a critical component of its Quality First initiative to document customer satisfaction and to demonstrate improvement in key performance measures, such as staff retention. Quality First, is a profession-driven initiative launched in 2002, to encourage and guide long term care providers to achieve performance excellence and best serve the needs of their patients and residents. The data provided by My InnerView, Inc., provides a benchmark for one of the six performance goals of Quality First - to achieve "high rates on customer satisfaction"

Yarwood concluded that the My InnerView data will allow facility leaders to have the evidence needed to initiate specific quality improvement programs. At the state level, AHCA affiliates will have data to develop targeted education programs for facility leaders and staff that enhance performance and advance quality improvement benefiting residents, patients and their families.

The American Health Care Association and the National Center For Assisted Living are the nation's leading long term care organizations. AHCA/NCAL and their membership are committed to performance excellence and Quality First, a covenant for healthy, affordable and ethical long term care. AHCA/NCAL represent nearly 11,000 non-profit and proprietary facilities dedicated to continuous improvement in the delivery of professional and compassionate care provided daily by millions of caring employees to more than 1.5 million of our nation's frail, elderly and disabled citizens who live in nursing facilities, assisted living residences, subacute centers and homes for persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

American Health Care Association
1201 L Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20005
http://www.ahca.org

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