BACKGROUND prescribing in nursing homes is frequently suboptimal. Indicators to measure prescribing quality, including appropriateness of prescribing certain drugs or combinations of drugs, to hospital inpatients have been developed previously. OBJECTIVE to modify prescribing indicators, including appropriateness of prescribing algorithms developed in the hospital setting, for use in nursing ...

Long term care for elderly people in the United Kingdom is increasingly provided by nursing homes in the independent sector. Between 1983 and 1994 the number of National Health Service (NHS) continuing care beds fell from 55 600 to 37 500 and the number of nursing home beds rose from 18 200 to 148 500.' With an estimated one in four people over 85 currently receiving institutional care' and pro...

THE issues of stability and sensitivity of indicators to actually detect differences in quality of care in nursing facilities are not only of concern to researchers, but also to public policy makers, who are reporting indicators to providers and now to consumers. Our research team at the University of Missouri-Columbia recently completed a study of 92 randomly selected nursing homes with a rang...