Improving care across skilled nursing facilities requires more than a single training, checklist, or corrective action. It takes structure, collaboration, data, leadership engagement, and practical support that helps teams turn quality goals into sustainable systems.
Qsource’s Culture of Safety Center, administered through Civil Monetary Penalty reinvestment funds, demonstrates what that kind of support can look like in action. This Tennessee-wide initiative brought skilled nursing facilities together around a shared goal: strengthening safety, quality of care, clinical consistency, and survey readiness across multiple high-risk areas.
Through the initiative, Qsource supported 42 skilled nursing facilities with a combination of statewide education, regional collaboratives, peer-to-peer learning, monthly technical assistance, and individualized coaching. Facilities received support with Root Cause Analysis, Performance Improvement Projects, data review, goal tracking, training resources, documentation tools, and QAPI alignment.
The focus areas reflected some of the most important and persistent challenges in long-term care, including falls, staffing stability, psychotropic medication use, and pressure injuries. By July 2023, all participating facilities had completed a customized Performance Improvement Project based on their selected quality priorities and demonstrated measurable improvement across target metrics.
The outcomes showed meaningful progress. Participating facilities achieved a 10% reduction in overall fall rates and falls with major injury. Nursing and administrative turnover declined from 4.4% to 2.5%. Facilities also reported notable reductions in antipsychotic, antidepressant, and anxiolytic use, along with decreased pressure injury prevalence in most participating organizations.
For nursing home leaders, the lesson is clear: statewide improvement succeeds when facilities are not expected to work in isolation. Collaborative learning, one-on-one technical assistance, structured regulatory coaching, and evidence-based QAPI practices can help teams make measurable progress while strengthening everyday systems of care.
The voices of participating facilities tell the story best.
“We enhanced our culture of safety through the expertise of Qsource Advisors.”
“Our QAPI meetings became more meaningful and productive.”
These results reflect Qsource’s broader commitment to helping healthcare organizations move from compliance pressure to sustainable improvement. Whether supporting facility-level change, statewide initiatives, or targeted quality improvement projects, Qsource brings real-world experience, practical tools, and trusted guidance to the work that matters most.
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