Longitudinal Pressure Ulcer Rates After Adoption of Culture Change in Veterans Health Administration Nursing Homes.

Objectives: To examine facility-level pressure ulcer (PrU) development rates and variations in these rates after a system-wide adoption of culture change in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) nursing homes.

Design: Four-year retrospective longitudinal design.

Setting: VHA facilities (N=109) representing 132 nursing homes known as community living centers (CLCs).

Participants: VHA nursing home residents.

Measurements: PrUs were identified using fiscal year (FY) 2008-11 Minimum Data Set (MDS) data. PrU development was defined as a Stage 2 or larger PrU on an MDS assessment with no PrU on the previous assessment. A risk adjustment model was developed using 105,274 MDS observations to predict the likelihood of PrUs (c-statistic=0.72). A Bayesian hierarchical model that adjusted for differences in the precision of PrU rates from different-size facilities was used to calculate smoothed risk-adjusted (SRA) rates for each facility. The statistical significance of the trend over the 4 years was determined by examining the 95% interval estimate for the slope.

Results: Over the 4-year period, the beginning of which coincided with the VHA's system-wide adoption of culture change as a performance measure, median SRA facility PrU development rates were fairly consistent at approximately 4%. The range in SRA rates declined over the years, from a 14.8-percentage point spread to 10.1-percentage point spread. Some facilities had significantly improving SRA rates (e.g., declined steadily from 5.5% to 3.9%) and some had significantly worsening SRA rates (e.g., increased steadily from 5.1% to 7.9%). Seven sites had significantly improving rates (P<.001) that were below the median across all 4 years.

Conclusion: A system-wide culture change implementation did not affect CLC PrU development rates, but there was significant variation in facility rates, and some facilities had sustained high performance.