02/04/2004 - MEDICARE'S NURSING HOME QUALITY INITIATIVE RELEASES ENHANCED SET OF QUALITY MEASURES

IPRO Says Enhancements Benefit Consumers, Nursing Homes

IPRO, a Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO), announced today that an enhanced set of quality measures, now featured on Medicare's Nursing Home Compare Web site, is making it easier than ever for consumers to compare the quality of care provided in New York nursing homes. The enhanced measures and other upgrades to the Nursing Home Compare Web site are available at www.medicare.gov.

"The enhanced measures give consumers the information they want and need when making decisions about nursing home care," said Clare D. Bradley, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at IPRO. "The measures also provide nursing homes with meaningful data to assist them in improving their quality of care."

Nursing Home Compare and the quality measures are part of the Nursing Home Quality Initiative (NHQI), launched in 2002 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Initiative demonstrates CMS?s ongoing commitment to improve quality of care through accountability and public disclosure.

The 14 enhanced quality measures, including 11 for chronic and three for post-acute care, are endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), a voluntary standard-setting consensus-building organization representing providers, consumers, purchasers and researchers. CMS worked with the NQF to endorse measures that reflect issues of importance to consumers when they make decisions about nursing home care. The NQF reviewed existing research to ensure that the selected quality measures employ the best science available and validly reflect quality of care. The enhanced measure set reflects the recent recommendations by the NQF.

Aligning with NQF recommendations, CMS is posting the enhanced set of quality measures to the Nursing Home Compare section of www.medicare.gov. Upgrades to Nursing Home Compare make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. Consumers can now search by distance from a city or ZIP code and by nursing home name, allowing them to print maps and directions for the nursing homes they select. The Web site is also available in Spanish.

"During the past year, we've worked extensively with New York's nursing homes to ensure that they are able to take advantage of the information provided by the quality measures and improve their quality of care," said Dr. Bradley. "We at IPRO are committed to helping nursing homes with their own efforts to improve the care they provide to their residents by offering free consultative services and sharing our expertise in quality improvement."

Many nursing home facilities in New York have already made significant improvements in the care provided to residents by taking advantage of the materials and the support from IPRO. For example, one New York State nursing home facility identified pain management as a topic area in which improvements could be made. The nursing home formed a work group to direct a facility-wide effort to examine policies, processes and tools being used and to encourage the involvement of staff in advocating for effective pain management. By updating these aspects of resident care, the facility was able to decrease the percentage of its residents with post-acute care pain from 25 percent to 8 percent in the period between the second quarter of 2002 and the second quarter of 2003. The facility also demonstrated a decrease in the percentage of its residents with chronic pain from 15 percent to 4 percent in the same period.

More information on the enhanced measures can be accessed at Medicare's Web site, www.medicare.gov, by clicking on the Nursing Home Compare link, or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

Contact:

Whitney Wasserman/Dennis Tartaglia

212/481-7000

Spencer Vibbert

516/326-7767 ext. 652