Nursing homes that employ medical directors certified by the American Medical Directors Association show significant improvement in quality of care over facilities that don’t, according to a new analysis.
Using federal Online Survey Certification and Reporting (OSCAR) data, researchers compared certain citations areas that would be influenced by a medical director. Of more than 15,000 nursing homes that were considered for the report, 547 had certified medical directors, according to Cowles Research Group, an independent firm hired by AMDA. When factors such as facility size, not-for-profit status and registered-nurse hours per day were taken into account, researchers noticed that facilities with certified medical directors had as much as a 15% quality-of-care improvement over other facilities.
Although the medical directors association funded the report, officials point out it received the approval of an institutional review board, and authors reported no conflicts of interest. Report authors suggest their finding could provide support for broader adoption of a law now used in Maryland that requires nursing homes to hire AMDA-certified or similarly trained medical directors. The full report is available here.
