AMDA Foundation - Vol XI, Nov `05

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Vol XI, Nov `05

QI Newsletter Archive - Volume XI, November 2005

The AMDA Foundation's Research Network Conference

Vol XI, Nov `05

The AMDA Foundation's Long-Term Care Research Network Conference took place in Chicago, November 11-13, 2005. Below is the LTC-QI Partnership's meeting update and, at bottom right, are select tips learned from this project.

Trailblazing Project

On Saturday, November 12, several members of the LTC-QI Partnership project team presented lessons learned in a panel presentation entitled, "Overcoming barriers in long-term care research."
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Learned Flexibility

Vol XI, Nov `05

While the project follows a randomized control trial design, it is, at heart, a demonstration project and has required project staff to react to barriers in real-time and adjust the project's strategies accordingly. The AMDA Foundation's Director of Research, Barbara Calabrese, described the intervention components and explained when and why project staff incorporated flexibility. One example is that training was shortened to allow: (1) key nursing home leadership to attend half-day sessions and (2) training by phone.

Incorporating Data

Vol XI, Nov `05

The LTC-QI Partnership strives to use data creatively to (1) increase efficiency and (2) motivate nursing home staff. By using publicly available data from Nursing Home Compare, the project team was able to quickly identify facilities that met initial eligibility criteria (location, bed size, quality measure scores). This data allowed staff to easily create contact lists and target mailings to potentially eligible facilities.

In addition to using data for administrative purposes, the project team designed a Web-based data collection tool that allows nursing homes to abstract medical records data and view their process measure scores in real-time. This provides an audit and feedback component to the intervention.

Select Research Tips