Development of a risk-adjusted urinary incontinence outcome measure of quality for nursing homes

Quality of nursing home care is of ongoing concern. The availability of uniform, patient-level information-the Minimum Data Set (MDS)-offers the opportunity to assess quality based on risk-adjusted health outcomes.

To develop a risk-adjusted measure of quality based on urinary incontinence (UI) outcomes for nursing homes, derived from the MDS.

A retrospective statistical analysis of individual resident level data.

MDS+ data for 46,453 residents of 671 nursing homes in New York State during the 1995 to 1997 period.

Improvement in UI status was defined based on the resident's UI status at 3 months post admission relative to status at admission. Individual risk factors were also defined at admission. Facility level quality indicators were developed.

Facility level indicators show substantial variation. An average facility, providing average quality care to a population of average risk, would experience improvement in UI outcomes for 11 of its 25 admissions in a year. The difference between the best and the worst facilities (two standard deviations above and below the average) is eight new residents with improvement in UI outcomes out of 25 annual admissions.

This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring quality of UI care based on nationally available MDS data. The measures presented can be used to support internal quality improvement efforts. Before such measures can be used externally, either in the survey process or in quality report cards, they should be further validated.