Development of a crosswalk from the Minimum Data Set 2.0 to the Alberta Resident Classification System

Ontario has mandated the use of the Minimum Data Set 2.0 (MDS) to classify patients in all chronic care hospital beds as of July 1996. The MDS, widely used in several other jurisdictions, has been shown to have several advantages over other assessment systems. However, Ontario currently classifies residents of homes for the aged and nursing homes under the Alberta Resident Classification System (ARCS). Since there is not a single system to assess the elderly in institutional settings, it is not possible to create a funding system for all institutions based on patient rather than facility characteristics. The author reports on the development of a crosswalk algorithm to compute ARCS levels of care based on clinical items from the MDS. This algorithm may be used to support a transitional approach to move to a funding system for long-term care based on Resource Utilization Groups (RUG-III).