New quality measures are now included in the overall calculation for Nursing Home star ratings
Earlier this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updated the Nursing Home Compare Five-Star Quality Ratings to incorporate new measures, giving families more information at their fingertips to help them make important decisions about care. These new measures look at successful discharges, emergency department visits and re-hospitalizations.
“When residents and their families are faced with important decisions about care, they need an easy, transparent way to figure out which facility is the best fit for them or their loved ones,” said CMS Deputy Administrator and Chief Medical Officer Patrick Conway, M.D., MSc. “With this update, star ratings will provide an even more accurate reflection of the services that nursing homes provide.”
Nursing homes receive four different star ratings on the Nursing Home Compare website (each ranging from 1 to 5 stars): one for each of the components – health inspections, staffing, and quality measures – and one for an overall rating, which is calculated by combining each of the three component star ratings. With the new quality measures added to the calculations, the quality measures star rating for each nursing home, as well as the overall rating, will likely change.
CMS is committed to making sure that residents, their family members, and caregivers have the most meaningful information possible when they consider facilities. Nursing Home Compare is the agency’s public information website that provides information on how well Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes provide care to their residents.
These star rating programs are part of the Administration’s Open Data Initiative which aims to make government data freely available and useful while ensuring privacy, confidentiality and security.
For more information on this recent announcement, visit the CMS Newsroom.
The nursing home quality improvement staff of the Great Plains QIN work daily with providers to assist them in analyzing the data that populates the NH Compare website. We are here to assist nursing home care providers in identifying opportunities for improvement in care that can be reflected in these numbers. For more information, check out our nursing home resources on our Web site and join the Learning and Action Network to get connected!