National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care Achieves Goals to Reduce Unnecessary Antipsychotic Medications in Nursing Homes

On October 2, the National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care announced that it met its goal of reducing the national prevalence of antipsychotic use in long-stay nursing home residents by 30 percent by the end of 2016. It also announced a new goal of a 15 percent reduction by the end of 2019 for long-stay residents in those homes with currently limited reduction rates. Nursing homes with low rates of antipsychotic medication use are encouraged to continue their efforts and maintain their success.

Between the end of 2011 and the end of quarter one of 2017, the national prevalence of antipsychotic use in long-stay nursing home residents was reduced by 34.1 percent, decreasing from 23.9 percent to 15.7 percent nationwide. All 50 states and every Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) region showed improvement. Some states showed much more improvement than others. The states that have reduced their rate by the highest percentage include the District of Columbia (47.8 percent), Tennessee (43.5 percent), California (43 percent), and Arkansas (41.6 percent). (Data on all states is below in figure 3).

Data for homes with high rates of use has been collected and will be shared with State Dementia Care Coalitions for outreach purposes.

Figure 1: Quarterly Prevalence of Antipsychotic Use for Long-Stay Nursing Home Residents, 2011-Q2 to 2017-Q1

Figure 2: Quarterly Prevalence of Antipsychotic Use for Long-Stay Residents, CMS Regions* 2011-Q2 to 2017-Q1 
*Region 1: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont; Region 2: New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands; Region 3: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia; Region 4: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee; Region 5: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin; Region 6: Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas; Region 7: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska; Region 8: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming; Region 9: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Pacific Territories; Region 10: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon Washington

Figure 3: Quarterly Prevalence of Antipsychotic Use for Long-Stay Residents, States 2011-Q4 to 2017-Q1