Center for Applied Research Awarded Grant to Evaluate Kansas Culture Change Project

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2015
Contact: Amanda Marr, 202-508-1219, amarr@leadingage.org

Washington -- The Retirement Research Foundation has awarded LeadingAge’s Center for Applied Research (CFAR) a $149,776 grant to evaluate Kansas’ Medicaid pay-for-performance incentive to facilitate the adoption of “culture change” in the state’s 340 nursing homes.

The goal of the CFAR project, “A Quantitative Evaluation of Kansas’ Peak 2.0 Program to Incentivize Adoption of Culture Change in State Nursing Homes,” is to determine whether the Kansas incentive and training program improves:

• Resident health.
• Resident quality of life.
• Employee job satisfaction. 

Led by Dr. Linda Hermer, senior research scientist at LeadingAge, and in collaboration with researchers at the Kansas State University Center on Aging, the team will examine:

• Resident health outcomes through quarterly tracking in CMS’ Minimum Data Set (MDS). 
• Resident satisfaction with their nursing homes through yearly tracking by a satisfaction instrument administered by the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services.
• Resident quality of life as tracked annually by quality-of-life survey deficiencies.
• Nursing-home employee turnover rates.

The Kansas P4P program was adopted in 2002 by the state Legislature in order to help make Kansas nursing homes less institutional, with person-centered care and resident choice governing daily life, and the intent to improve resident health and wellbeing.

An additional goal is to empower employees, increasing their job satisfaction and reducing their turnover rates. However, since initiation, none of these outcomes have been comprehensively and quantitatively examined.

The 18-month CFAR project, which begins July 15, will be one of a very few large-scale analyses of the potential benefits of adopting culture change.

“There were 2 previous large-scale studies of culture change’s effects on resident health that found relatively few benefits, however, each of those studies had limitations in their design that could have led to the inconclusive results,” said Dr. Hermer. “Several features of the Kansas program and the team’s analyses will allow us to examine whether the program is beneficial with greater precision and an uncommon ability to draw causal inferences.”

The research team, which also includes Dr. Robyn Stone, executive director of CFAR, and Natasha Bryant, senior research associate, will produce articles and issue briefs to benefit aging-services providers as well as states and other stakeholders considering culture-change incentive programs.

“The CFAR team is looking forward to evaluating the effectiveness of the Kansas program,” said Dr. Robyn Stone. “At LeadingAge, we believe culture change is an important aspect of expanding the world of possibilities for aging, and we hope our research on this project will further reinforce that belief.”