On July 13, 2015, CMS announced a proposal to improve the safety affecting the residents of long term care and the quality of care. This includes regulations for reducing the unnecessary hospital readmissions and infections, increasing the quality of care for the residents and the safety measures are amongst the top revisions in CMS. Incase this goes into effect, the proposed rule will definitely be the first rewrite of the conditions of participation of long term care since 1991. According to a press release by CMS, for all facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid, the new rule is aimed at bringing in best practices for resident care. This rule would also implement a good number of safeguards that have been identified and also include it in the additional protections required by ACA - Affordable Care Act Below are some of the changes that are a part of this new proposed rule of Long Term Care: From a skill sets perspective, the new rule requires the staff members to have the right skills and competencies to provide a person centric resident care. This takes into consideration the preferences and goals of care for the residents in the care plan. Nursing homes to consider the proper care of residents while making staffing decisions. Nursing homes are required to staff properly trained resources for care with respect to dementia and preventing elder abuse. Improvements in discharge planning Improvements in care planning Involvement of the facility's interdisciplinary team and consideration of caregiver's capacity Allowing the dieticians and therapy providers the authority to write orders in their respective areas of expertise when a physician delegate the responsibility. Updation of nursing homes infection prevention and control programs, with a requirement of infection prevention and control officer along with an antibiotic stewardship program including the protocols for the use of antibiotics and a proper system to monitor antibiotic use. Providing a greater choice of food for the residents and at the same time giving flexibility to the nursing homes. Strengthening rights of nursing home residents, including placing limits on when and how binding arbitration agreements may be used.
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