Long Term Care Profession Outlines Roadmap To Continued Nursing Home Quality Improvements, USA

While acknowledging there remain "many challenges ahead in terms of addressing and improving the nation's most troubled facilities," the American Health Care Association (AHCA) today told the Senate Special Committee on Aging that a culture of cooperation among long term care providers, regulators, and consumers is essential to continuing to build on the improvements in patient care quality made to date and in the years ahead.

"What we have is a system that defines 'success' and quality in a regulatory context that is often measured by the level of fines levied and the violations tallied - not by the quality of care, or quality of life," as was originally intended when Congress passed the landmark Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA '87), testified Mary Ousley, who is past Chair of AHCA, a registered nurse, a certified nursing home administrator, and a recognized national expert in facility management and the federal regulatory process.

In discussing the profession's twenty year experience with OBRA '87 - the federal law establishing much of today's nursing home oversight rules - Ousley said OBRA '87 was intended to move the survey and certification process in a new direction: "The statute envisioned a resident-centered, outcome-oriented, consistent system of oversight. Unfortunately the system we have today bears little resemblance to that vision."

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