Nursing home administrators’ perspectives on a study feedback report: a cross sectional survey

Abstract

BackgroundThis project is part of the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research, a multi-level and longitudinal research program being conducted in 36 nursing homes in three Canadian Prairie Provinces. The overall goal of TREC is to improve the quality of care for older persons living in nursing homes and the quality of work life for care providers. The purpose of this paper is to report on development and evaluation of facility annual reports (FARs) from facility administrators’ perspectives on the usefulness, meaningfulness, and understandability of selected data from the TREC survey.MethodsA cross sectional survey design was used in this study. The feedback reports were developed in collaboration with participating facility administrators. FARs presented results in four contextual areas: workplace culture, feedback processes, job satisfaction, and staff burnout. Six weeks after FARs were mailed to each administrator, we conducted structured telephone interviews with administrators to elicit their evaluation of the FARs. Administrators were also asked if they had taken any actions as a result of the FAR. Descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as content analysis for open-ended questions, were used to summarize findings.ResultsThirty-one facility administrators (representing thirty-two facilities) participated in the interviews. Six administrators had taken action and 18 were planning on taking action as a result of FARs. The majority found the four contextual areas addressed in FAR to be useful, meaningful, and understandable. They liked the comparisons made between data from years one and two and between their facility and other TREC study sites in their province. Twenty-two indicated that they would like to receive information on additional areas such as aggressive behaviours of residents and information sharing. Twenty-four administrators indicated that FARs contained enough information, while eight found FARs ‘too short’. Administrators who reported that the FAR contained enough information were more likely to take action within their facilities than administrators who reported that they needed more information.ConclusionsAlthough the FAR was brief, the presentation of the four contextual areas was relevant to the majority of administrators and prompted them to plan or to take action within their facility.

Comparing effects of two higher intensity feedback interventions with simple feedback on improving staff communication in nursing homes—the INFORM cluster-randomized controlled trial

“…TREC's mission is to improve the quality of care and quality of life for frail, older nursing home residents, and quality of worklife for their paid caregivers. Feeding back research data to care teams has always been one of TREC's integral activities [28][29][30][31]. To improve formal communication in interdisciplinary care teams and integrate care aides into these formal communications, we further developed our feedback approach and included two higher intensity feedback interventions based on goal-setting theory and compared them to our simple feedback intervention [32], which in this case was our team's usual feedback approach.…”

“…The simple feedback group (our control or usual care arm) received tailored feedback reports only 2-3 months after the baseline data collection. We consider simple feedback "usual care" because all TREC homes receive this kind of feedback after each wave of data collection [28][29][30][31], regardless of whether they participate in an intervention study or any other TREC activity. To deliver the correct intervention to each study group and to monitor correct fidelity criteria, persons involved in these activities could not be blinded to study arm allocation.…”

Comparing effects of two higher intensity feedback interventions with simple feedback on improving staff communication in nursing homes – The INFORM cluster-randomized controlled trial

“…The simple feedback group (our control or usual care arm) received tailored feedback reports only 2-3 months after the baseline data collection. We consider simple feedback 'usual care' because all TREC homes receive this kind of feedback after each wave of data collection [28][29][30][31], regardless of whether they participate in an intervention study or any other TREC activity. To deliver the correct intervention to each study group and to monitor correct delity criteria, persons involved in these activities could not be blinded to study arm allocation.…”

“…TREC's mission is to improve quality of care and quality of life for frail, older nursing home residents and quality of work-life for their paid caregivers. Feeding back research data to care teams has always been one of TREC's integral activities [28][29][30][31]. To improve formal communication in interdisciplinary care teams and integrate care aides into these formal communications, we further developed our feedback approach and included two higher intensity feedback interventions based on Goal Setting Theory and compared them to our simple feedback intervention [32], which in this case was our team's usual feedback approach..…”

Making Research Results Relevant and Useable: Presenting Complex Organizational Context Data to Nonresearch Stakeholders in the Nursing Home Setting

“…TREC investigates associations between organizational context (work environment), use of best practices and resident outcomes in a representative cohort of 30 Canadian urban nursing homes. Using various techniques, we engage in feeding back data and results to nursing home stakeholders both during TREC studies and in end of grant knowledge translation (Boström et al, 2012;Cranley, Birdsell, Norton, Morgan, & Estabrooks, 2012;Hutchinson et al, 2012). Most TREC stakeholders are nonresearchers-managerial and policy decisionmakers, service providers, and clinicians.…”