Help with these or other Connections Performance Measurement features

Our menues often have a '?' to the left of the menu item. Click the '?' to get help on that menu item. Also, to get help with these or other Connections Performance Measurement features, just call or e-mail Connections Performance Measurement support.

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Previous notes:
2009/06/26 - 2009/01/09
2008/09/15 - 2008/01/18
2007/11/30 - 2007/08/13
2005/10/05
2004/12/16 - 2004/11/02 - 2004/01/01

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What's New (2009/06/26)

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CMS Five-Star Ratings

On Tuesday, June 30, CMS will take a snapshot of every nursing home in the country. THIS MEANS YOU! The data collected will be used, in part, to determine your facility’s Five-Star rating. How will you do and where can you improve? Connections Performance Measurement has developed two reports to help you answer these questions.

You will find these reports on the Demographics menu in Connections Performance Measurement.

In each of the examples below, CMS will look at data for facilities across the country and rank them by percentile into five groups. One to five stars will be awarded based on these rankings. (There are other elements and calculations involved, but this provides a simple look at the process.)

Want more information on the Five-Star Rating system? Go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/Certificationandcomplianc/13_FSQRS.asp

QM Component Points for 5-Star Rating System

CMS has chosen ten Quality Measures, 7 for long-term and 3 for short-stay residents, for the 5-Star Rating System. Run this report on the CMS snapshot date (or any other day) to see how many points, of a possible 136, your facility earns. Use the results to focus quality improvement efforts.

Results are adjusted if a facility has either no long-term or no short-stay residents.

Staffing Needs per RUGs for 5-Star Rating System

Another CMS snapshot will determine, based on current residents’ last RUG score, what the staffing levels should be.

The critical numbers are:
* Total nursing hours per resident day (RN+LPN+nurse aide hours) (3.81 in example)
* RN hours per resident day (1.49 in example)

Compare these numbers to actual staffing to predict Five-Star performance.