Make Care Safer by Reducing Harm
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services organizes measures in the state health system performance pillar of the Scorecard using the domains defined in the Meaningful Measures initiative. The initiative identifies the highest priority areas for quality measurement and improvement. The measures in this domain focus on preventing harm caused in the delivery of care, which can make care safer for Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.
This measure reports the percentage of long-stay nursing home residents who received antipsychotic drugs from April 1, 2018 through March 31, 2019. Lower rates are better. The purple dashed line represents the median, or middle of all values reported. |
Antipsychotic drugs are an important treatment for patients with certain mental health conditions, but they are associated with an increased risk of death when used in elderly patients with dementia. The medications also have side effects. If possible, nursing homes should try to manage behavior without medications first. Managing behavior in other ways -- like higher staffing ratios, non-pharmacological interventions, and regular assignment of nursing staff-- has lowered the use of medications in many cases. CMS calculates this measure using data from the Minimum Data Set (MDS). The MDS is part of the federally mandated process for clinical assessment of all residents in Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes. Not all of a state’s residents reflected in the data for this measure are enrolled in Medicaid, but Medicaid is the primary payer across the nation for long-term care services. |
State Health System Performance | Percentage of Long-stay Nursing Home Residents who got an Antipsychotic Medication |
Source: Nursing Home Compare Note: Data for American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands are not available. |