Dual impacts of Medicare payment reform and the COVID-19 pandemic on therapy staffing in skilled nursing facilities.

BACKGROUND: Implementation of new skilled nursing facility (SNF) Medicare payment policy, the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM), resulted in immediate declines in physical and occupational therapy staffing. This study characterizes continuing impacts of PDPM in conjunction with COVID-19 on SNF therapy staffing and examines variability in staffing changes based on SNF organizational characteristics. METHODS: We analyzed Medicare administrative data from a national cohort of SNFs between January 2019 and March 2022. Interrupted time series mixed effects regression examined changes in level and trend of total therapy staffing minutes/patient-day during PDPM and COVID-19 and by type of staff (therapists, assistants, contractors, and in-house staff). Secondary analyses examined the variability in staffing by organizational characteristics. RESULTS: PDPM resulted in a -6.54% level change in total therapy staffing, with larger declines for assistants and contractors. Per-patient staffing fluctuated during COVID-19 as the census changed. PDPM-related staffing declines were larger in SNFs that were: Rural, for-profit, chain-affiliated, provided more intensive therapy, employed more therapy assistants, and admitted more Medicare patients before PDPM. COVID-19 resulted in larger staffing declines in rural SNFs but smaller early declines in SNFs that were hospital-based, for-profit, or received more relief funding. CONCLUSIONS: SNFs that historically engaged in profit-maximizing behaviors (e.g., providing more therapy via lower-paid assistants) had larger staffing declines during PDPM compared to other SNFs. Therapy staffing fluctuated during COVID-19, but PDPM-related reductions persisted 2 years into the pandemic, especially in rural SNFs. Results suggest specific organizational characteristics that should be targeted for staffing and quality improvement initiatives.

Effectiveness and scalability of an electronic patient-reported outcome measure and decision support tool for family-centred and participation-focused early intervention: PROSPECT hybrid type 1 trial protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Early intervention (EI) endorses family-centred and participation-focused services, but there remain insufficient options for systematically enacting this service approach. The Young Children's Participation and Environment Measure electronic patient-reported outcome (YC-PEM e-PRO) is an evidence-based measure for caregivers that enables family-centred services in EI. The Parent-Reported Outcomes for Strengthening Partnership within the Early Intervention Care Team (PROSPECT) is a community-based pragmatic trial examining the effectiveness of implementing the YC-PEM e-PRO measure and decision support tool as an option for use within routine EI care, on service quality and child outcomes (aim 1). Following trial completion, we will characterise stakeholder perspectives of facilitators and barriers to its implementation across multiple EI programmes (aim 2). METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This study employs a hybrid type 1 effectiveness-implementation study design. For aim 1, we aim to enrol 223 caregivers of children with or at risk for developmental disabilities or delays aged 0-3 years old that have accessed EI services for three or more months from one EI programme in the Denver Metro catchment of Colorado. Participants will be invited to enrol for 12 months, beginning at the time of their child's annual evaluation of progress. Participants will be randomised using a cluster-randomised design at the EI service coordinator level. Both groups will complete baseline testing and follow-up assessment at 1, 6 and 12 months. A generalised linear mixed model will be fitted for each outcome of interest, with group, time and their interactions as primary fixed effects, and adjusting for child age and condition severity as secondary fixed effects. For aim 2, we will conduct focus groups with EI stakeholders (families in the intervention group, service coordinators and other service providers in the EI programme, and programme leadership) which will be analysed thematically to explain aim 1 results and identify supports and remaining barriers to its broader implementation in multiple EI programmes. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study has been approved by the institutional review boards at the University of Illinois at Chicago (2020-0555) and University of Colorado (20-2380). An active dissemination plan will ensure that findings have maximum reach for research and practice. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04562038.

Stakeholder-Driven Methods Can Enhance Care Delivery for Nursing Home Residents With Dementia

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to optimize care for one of the most affected sectors: older adults in nursing homes and more specifically highly vulnerable populations such as residents with dementia. Research developed in collaboration with stakeholders can optimize impact, relevance, and trustworthiness of study findings thereby informing advances in care. Yet, evidence on stakeholder driven research for enhancing dementia care is limited. This symposium will provide examples of stakeholder-driven research questions that were addressed with stakeholder engagement. First, we will present current evidence about the perspectives of caregivers, including those from communities of color. The second presentation will discuss the perspective of clinical training stakeholders responsible for supporting system-wide clinical program implementation and their experiences with early and later adopter nursing homes within the context of a clinical trial. The third presentation will address the perspective of policy makers and payers via the effect of state-mandated dementia training on resident outcomes. The fourth and final present the findings from a study that examined how nursing home stakeholders responded to a payor requirements for pharmacy services and the relationship between that response and patient outcomes. We will conclude the session with a discussion of stakeholder-engagement methods and recommendations for future nursing home research, which champions stakeholder collaboration.