The Seniors Quality Leap Initiative has engaged North America’s leading Long Term Care providers in a novel, collaborative effort to drive improved clinical quality and safety as they relate to the quality of life of seniors, by sharing performance data and the results of specific quality improvement initiatives.
Using the interRAI Minimum Data Set (MDS), SQLI organizations receive quarterly reports on their performance on a number of quality of care and quailty of life indicators.
Performance reports include organizational benchmarks over time, as well as U.S. reference benchmarks. SQLI members also benchmark their performance on resident quality of life using the interRAI Quality of Life Survey.
There are 29 measures of quality of care, and 47 quality of life indicators, that SQLI members measure and report. Below is a sample list of some quality measures:
Quality of Life: Over the past four years, the member organizations have been completing interRAI Quality of Life Surveys with long term care residents. The InterRAI survey is an internationally valid survey designed to give long term care residents with the opportunity to share their perceptions on a variety of quality-of-life domains including relationships, environment, comfort, food, and participation in meaningful activities.
Annually, results are analyzed and SQLI members review and benchmark their results and discuss initiatives from higher performing homes. Following the last round of the quality of life surveys, there was a collective desire to gather more in-depth feedback from residents to better understand their perceptions around specific survey questions and areas for improvement. SQLI members conducted focus groups with residents about the survey results and together, the consortium is now focused on making improvements to the caring staff scale given its association and relationship with the InterRAI (MDS) quality care indicators.
Improving Pain Management: The first major test for SQLI has been a focus on improving pain management. Pain affects approximately 80% of older adults living in long-term care. The improvement objective was to reduce the percentage of residents with worsened pain and pain severity, and improve residents’ quality of life.
The results are impressive: Among all SQLI members, the percentage of residents with moderate or severe pain has improved by 8 percentage points, and some member organizatons have improved by more than 20 percentage points. Meanwhile, the percentage of residents with continuous pain has also improved by 8 percentage points, with members improving from 4 percentage points to 22 percentage points.
