Families can help reduce the use of nursing home restraints

Pragmatic trials may help to identify effective strategies to reduce nursing home antipsychotic medication use

Despite widespread agreement that nursing homes' use of antipsychotic medications for residents without specific psychiatric diagnoses is a marker of poor quality of care, prevalence remains high. Additionally, variation suggests continued opportunity to improve care even in countries, like the United States, that have long-standing policies designed to decrease antipsychotic medication use. In...

Pay for Performance: Can It Help Improve Nursing Home Quality?

Nursing home quality threatens the well-being of residents. Pay for performance pays organizations for meeting performance targets and is required in Medicare hospitals under the 2010 Patient Protection and Aff ordable Care Act, where it is called “valuebased purchasing.” It is not yet required of nursing homes. Th is article asks whether pay for performance could mitigate nursing home quality ...

Can Electronic Tools Help Improve Nursing Home Quality?

Background. Nursing homes face challenges in the coming years due to the increased number of elderly. Quality will be under pressure, expectations of the services will rise, and clinical complexity will grow. New strategies are needed to meet this situation. Modern clinical information systems with decision support may be part of that. Objectives. To study the impact of introducing an electroni...

[Effectiveness of a multifactorial intervention to reduce physical restraints in nursing home residents with dementia].

At present, observational studies and expert opinion are the best evidence for the use of physical restraints. Large regional and national disparities are described in acute and long-term care. Epidemiological data demonstrate a prevalence of 3-5% body-fixed or near body restraint devices. The hip fracture rate in Germany are approximately 50 per 1000 resident years. Between 40-50% of the resid...

The Use of Physical Restraints Among Nursing Home Residents: Do Disparities Exist?