Staff assist: a resource to improve nursing home quality and staffing.

PURPOSE This study describes the creation and use of a web-based resource, designed to help nursing homes implement quality improvements through changes in staffing characteristics. DESIGN AND METHODS Information on staffing characteristics (i.e., staffing levels, turnover, stability, and use of agency staff), facility characteristics (e.g., ownership, size), and quality (i.e., quality measures [QMs]) coming from 2,946 nursing homes were utilized in a simulation analysis. The simulation was used to predict changes in each of 11 QMs, based on changes in staffing characteristics for individual nursing homes using the web-tool. RESULTS The website was visited 2,347 times in the first 6 months after it became operational. Evidence would suggest that it was useful in informing nursing home management of the importance of staffing and facilitating staffing changes; moreover, active users of the website showed improvements in quality, with an average of 5 of the 11 QMs improving by more than 1%. IMPLICATIONS The web-based resource may be a feasible low-cost model that can be replicated, to provide further information for other areas of quality improvement in nursing homes.