The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 mandates that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) use standardized patient assessment data elements across post-acute care settings. RAND was tasked by CMS with developing and testing the data elements. This report, Volume 3 of a series, provides information about the representativeness of the facility/agency and patient/resident samples used in the study.

Development and Evaluation of Candidate Standardized Patient Assessment Data Elements

Findings from the National Beta Test (Volume 3: Sample Description)

Maria Orlando Edelen, Anthony Rodriguez, Sangeeta C. Ahluwalia, Emily K. Chen, Catherine C. Cohen, Sarah Dalton, Jason Michel Etchegaray, Wenjing Huang, Brenda Karkos, David J. Klein, et al.

ResearchPublished Nov 15, 2019

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracted with the RAND Corporation to evaluate candidate standardized patient assessment data elements (SPADEs) in a national field test titled the National Beta Test. The National Beta Test was conducted to evaluate the performance of candidate SPADEs in the clinical categories of (1) cognitive function and mental status; (2) special services, treatments, and interventions; (3) medical conditions and comorbidities; (4) impairments; and (5) other categories, for use in four post-acute care (PAC) settings: home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities.

This is Volume 3 of the final report on the National Beta Test. It provides a sample description and reports analyses that evaluate the generalizability of results from the National Beta Test sample, both in terms of the representativeness of the facility/agency-level sample to the national population of PAC facilities/agencies, as well as the patients and residents who participated in the National Beta Test relative to the national population of patients and residents receiving PAC in the United States.

Key Takeaways

Representativeness of the National Beta Test facility/agency sample

  • The sampled facilities/agencies in the 14 National Beta Test markets were somewhat representative of the population in the 14 markets and nationally. However, the National Beta Test facility/agency sample had low rural representation, and larger facilities/agencies were somewhat overrepresented. Volumes 4–8 include sensitivity analyses to determine the effects of these differences on SPADE performance.

Representativeness of the National Beta Test patient/resident sample

  • The National Beta Test patient/resident sample, overall, is generally representative of the national population on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, and activities of daily living.
  • Differences according to PAC setting in tested data elements align with general differences in patient/resident populations.

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Document Details

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Edelen, Maria Orlando, Anthony Rodriguez, Sangeeta C. Ahluwalia, Emily K. Chen, Catherine C. Cohen, Sarah Dalton, Jason Michel Etchegaray, Wenjing Huang, Brenda Karkos, David J. Klein, Jaime Madrigano, Monique Martineau, Terry Moore, Patrick Orr, Jessica Phillips, Ben Schalet, Victoria Shier, Susan M. Paddock, and Denis Agniel, Development and Evaluation of Candidate Standardized Patient Assessment Data Elements: Findings from the National Beta Test (Volume 3: Sample Description). Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2019. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3004z2.html.
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The research described in this report was sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and conducted by the Quality Measurement and Improvement Program within RAND Health Care.

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