The National Center for Assisted Living has released updated targets to the four focus areas of its Quality Initiative.
The announcement came Tuesday at the organization’s National Quality Summit in New Orleans. The American Health Care Association also announced new skilled nursing goals.
The three-year goals for assisted living communities:
- Reduce turnover among direct care staff to a rate of 50% or less.
- Ensure that at least 90% of customers (residents and/or families) are satisfied with their experience.
- Safely reduce hospital readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharges to a rate of 20% or less.
- Safely reduce the off-label use of antipsychotics to a rate of 15% or less.
“Continuing to focus on these key quality areas not only betters the lives of residents but helps long-term care providers succeed in an evolving healthcare market,” NCAL Executive Director Scott Tittle said. “All of the goals intertwine to ensure excellence and person-centered care. We are humbled by the commitment our members have shown to the Quality Initiative and have no doubt they will persist to achieve these goals.”
NCAL member organizations are being challenged to meet the goals by March 2021. Measures developed by AHCA/NCAL will be used to monitor progress.
The nationwide effort builds on the progress achieved by the operators over the past six years since the Quality Initiative began. NCAL said its quality initiative also is inspiring the state-based assisted living profession to collect and report national quality data without a government mandate. Although overall progress cannot be reported yet, the number of assisted living communities self-reporting to AHCA/NCAL is increasing, according to the organization.
NCAL members can view their progress toward meeting the goals using AHCA/NCAL’s LTC Trend Tracker, a web-based data collection and benchmarking tool.
In December, NCAL announced that 66 assisted living communities had attained two or more of the four goals of the Quality Initiative goals set in 2015. All of those communities were to be honored at the National Quality Summit.
