By Geralyn Magan
Researchers have determined the association between a nursing home’s level of person-centered care implementation and resident-reported satisfaction with their quality of life, quality of care, and quality of services.
Residents of nursing homes that have fully implemented person-centered care are more likely to give high ratings to their overall quality of life and quality of care, according to a newly published article in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JMDA).
The article is based on research that the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston (formerly the Center for Applied Research) conducted in collaboration with researchers at the Kansas State University Center on Aging. The Retirement Research Foundation funded the 18-month study.
Researchers analyzed satisfaction among residents of nursing homes participating in the Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas program—or PEAK 2.0. Launched in 2012, Kansas PEAK 2.0 uses a substantial Medicaid pay-for-performance incentive to promote the thorough adoption of person-centered care in nursing homes statewide.
Nursing homes participating in PEAK 2.0 are provided with extensive training and education about person-centered care and what it means. A structured, external evaluation process is used to determine each nursing home’s level of person-centered care adoption. These levels range from “Stage 0” for nursing homes that are not implementing culture change, to “Stage 4” for nursing homes carrying out sustained culture change implementation in all program areas.
Measuring Satisfaction
The JMDA article describes the retrospective cohort study that researchers conducted to determine the association between a nursing home’s level of person-centered care implementation and resident-reported overall satisfaction, and satisfaction with:
- Quality of life
- Quality of care
- Quality of services
Satisfaction data came from face-to-face interviews that the National Research Corporation conducted in 320 Kansas nursing homes during the PEAK 2.0 program years of 2013-2014 and 2014-2015.
“Quality is a complex and multifaceted concept, and many efforts have been made to measure this construct,” write the authors. “However, external quality measures … do not necessarily reflect whether residents are satisfied with the services they receive. The resident’s perspective is a key feature of determining the effectiveness of person-centered care practices.”
Full Implementation Equals Greater Satisfaction
The study’s retrospective analysis showed that residents living in PEAK homes that had fully implemented person-centered care reported:
- Higher overall satisfaction with the nursing home
- High satisfaction with the home “meeting your religious and spiritual needs;”
- Satisfaction with the choices available to them, the respect shown to them, their privacy needs being met, and staff knowing their preferences
“This study provides evidence for the importance of person-centered care for resident satisfaction,” conclude the authors. “Incorporating the residents’ perspective can provide critical feedback for nursing homes to ensure a high level of quality and that services are meeting residents’ needs and desires.”