[Evaluating quality and safety in long term care: results from the experimentation of the Smart Star model].

The Smart Star model is a rating system to evaluate the quality of care in nursing homes for the elderly; it uses a five star rating score. We tested the model in a sample of 16 nursing homes in Italy. The Smart Star model showed to be effective in the multidimensional evaluation of the performance of nursing homes.

[Evaluating the quality of care in nursing homes: comparison of three International models].

The aim of this observational descriptive study was to identify the main international models evaluating the quality of nursing homes for non self-sufficient elderly persons, and to apply them in the Italian health system. Firstly, a bibliographic search of institutional websites and Pubmed-Medline was performed to identify the main international models. Secondly, three variables were chosen to evaluate the level of implementability of the models: (1) frequency of use of quality indicators in the international models; (2) degree of constructability of the models in two Italian nursing homes; (3) perceived relevance of the indicators used by the chosen models, by nursing home workers.