Quality: New NCAL Initiative; Hospitalizations in HCBS

​Seeking to build on work already being done in the long-term care industry, the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) has launched The Quality Initiative for Assisted Living, setting specific, measurable targets to improve quality of care in skilled nursing centers and assisted-living communities. The initiative comprises four core areas, with NCAL encouraging its members to reach defined, concrete goals over the next three years. The goals are as follows: reduce hospital readmissions by 15% by March 2015, with communities that have a readmission rate of less than 5% maintaining that rate; maintain nursing staff turnover rates below 30% each year until March 2015; attain a rate of 90% among clients who would recommend the community to others and maintain the rate at or above 90% until March 2015; and safely reduce off-label use of antipsychotics by 15% by December 2013, with communities that have an off-label antipsychotic use below 5% maintaining that rate and all communities adopting at least one tool intended to reduce off-label antipsychotic use.