Transforming PAC Through Standardization and Care Coordination

The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 requires the submission of standardized data for specific assessment categories and quality measure domains using the assessment instruments the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) currently requires for use by post-acute care (PAC) providers. To this end, CMS has contracted with the RAND Corporation and its partners, Abt Associates Inc. and Qualidigm to develop, modify, implement, and align PAC assessment data across four PAC settings including skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, long-term care hospitals, and inpatient rehabilitation facilities. This work includes field testing of standardized data elements among providers in all four PAC settings to test the validity of the standardized data elements and the feasibility of collecting the items. Abt Associates will be seeking providers in each PAC setting to participate in the field testing, the first wave of which will be conducted in August and September 2016. Participation in the testing will require providers to identify up to two staff members, preferably clinical staff who routinely conduct resident/patient assessments to participate in a one and a half-day training on implementation of the assessment items, complete data collection on 15 new admissions within a ten-week data collection period, and accommodate research nurses as they complete their own series of assessments to evaluate inter-rater reliability and validity of the assessment items. Providers who participate in the field testing will be provided an honorarium for their participation. Click here for more information.