Yesterday, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released the long-awaited The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality – Honoring the Commitment to Residents, Families and Staff report. The long-awaited report is a comprehensive review of how the United States delivers, finances, regulates, and measures the quality of nursing home care.
Among its key findings, the report concludes that “the way the United States finances, delivers and regulates care in nursing home settings is ineffective, inefficient, fragmented and unsustainable.”At the webinar releasing the report, Committee members outlined seven broad goals and associated recommendations that, taken together, could profoundly change the delivery, financing, and quality of care in nursing homes.
The 605-page report and interwoven recommendations drives home the overarching goal to make high-quality, person-centered care equitable, safe and secure for our nation’s aging population. The committee made clear that the recommendations cannot be analyzed one by one, they are interdependent. For example, higher staff wages require higher reimbursement. LeadingAge will continue to analyze the report in more depth, but linked is an initial article summarizing highlights for nursing home provider members.
“This report is a piercing wake-up call for policymakers,” LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan said in a statement. “Decades of underfunding have left America’s nursing home system in desperate need of an overhaul.”