Giving “Voice” to Nursing Home Residents: A Revolution in Quality Assessment
It seems obvious to ask nursing home residents about their own health. But until a quiet revolution that took place in 2010, it didn't work that way.
Oct 9, 2012
Debra Saliba
Physician Policy Researcher
Santa Monica Office
Education
M.D., University of Alabama; M.P.H. in epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health
Media Resources
This researcher is available for interviews.
To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.
More ExpertsOverview
Debra Saliba (she/her), a physician policy researcher at RAND, is also a professor of medicine and the Anna & Harry Borun Endowed Chair in Geriatrics at UCLA. At the Los Angeles VA she is associate director for education in the HSR&D Center of Innovation. As a practicing geriatrician and health services researcher, Saliba's research focuses on creating tools and knowledge that improve quality of care and quality of life of older adults across care settings, including hospitals, home, post-acute care and nursing homes. She developed the VES-13, a survey that identifies vulnerable elders living in the community. Saliba was the principal investigator for CMS's MDS 3.0 Revision project and collaborative VA MDS Validation project. National tests showed significant gains in MDS reliability, validity, staff satisfaction, and efficiency. Saliba's recent research includes developing measures of physician performance in post-acute and long-term care; inclusion of patient and family priorities in weighting quality measures, and the relationship between nursing home quality and staffing structures. Saliba is executive editor for the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and past president and board chair of the American Geriatrics Society. In addition to serving on the NASEM Committee on Nursing Quality, Saliba serves on several national expert panels, including the CMS 5-star TEP and National Quality Forum Committees. Saliba received her M.D. from the University of Alabama where she also completed internal medicine residency. She completed fellowships in health services research and geriatric medicine at UCLA where she received an M.P.H. in epidemiology.
Research Focus
Concurrent Non-RAND Positions
Anna and Harry Borun Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology, University of California, Los Angeles; Director, UCLA/JH Borun Center for Gerontological Research; Research Physician, VA GLA GRECC; Associate Director for Education, VA GLA Center for InnovationRecent Projects
- Improving quality of life and safety in long-term care
- Individualizing goals of care
- Revision and validation of the Minimum Data Set for Nursing Homes (MDS 3.0)
- Development and validation of the Vulnerable Elders 13 Item Survey (VES-13)
- Nursing Home culture change
Selected Publications
Saliba D, Orlando M, Wenger NS, Hays RD, Rubenstein LZ, "Identifying a Short Functional Disability Screen for Older Persons," J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2000
Saliba D, Elliott M, Rubenstein LZ, Solomon DH, Young RT, Kamberg CJ, Roth C, MacLean CH, Shekelle PG, Sloss EM, Wenger NS, "The Vulnerable Elders Survey (VES-13): A Tool for Identifying Vulnerable Older People in the Community.," J Am Geriatr Soc, 2001
Saliba D, Buchanan J, Kington RS, "Function and Response of Nursing Facilities during Community Disaster," Am J Public Health, 2004
Edelen MO, Saliba D, "Correspondence of Verbal Descriptor and Numeric Rating Scales for Pain Intensity: An Item Response Theory Calibration," J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2010
Kramer J, Jouldjian S, Wang M, Dang J, Mitchell M, Finke B, Saliba D, "Do Correlates of Dual Use by American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans Operate Uniformly Across the Veterans Health Administration and the Indian Health Service?" J Gen Intern Med, 2011
Saliba D, Buchanan J, "Making the Investment Count: Revision of the Minimum Data Set for Nursing Homes, MDS 3.0," J Am Med Dir Assoc, 2012
Saliba D, Weimer D, Shi Y, Mukamel D, "Examination of the new short-stay nursing home quality measures: Rehospitalizations, emergency department visits, and successful returns to the community," Inquiry, 2018
Farrell TW, Francis L, Brown T, Ferrante LE, Widera E, Rhodes R, Rosen T, Hwang U, Witt LJ, Thothala N, Liu SW, Vitale CA, Braun UK, Stephens C, Saliba D, "Rationing Limited Health Care Resources in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond: Ethical Considerations Regarding Older Adults," J Am Geriatr Soc, 2020
Honors & Awards
- Robert L Kane Memorial Lectureship, University of Minnesota
- Kameny and Katz Lectureships, Brown University Department of Medicine and School of Public Health
- Visiting Faculty Scholar, Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care, University of Toronto
