Eagle Point recently joined nursing home associations, consumer advocates, and healthcare quality experts in the Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes campaign. The new national campaign is aimed at accelerating the rate of quality improvement in nursing homes across the country.

The voluntary campaign targets eight measurable clinical quality and organizational improvement goals on which nursing homes can work to improve their quality of care. The campaign acknowledges the critical role of consistent nursing home staffing and resident and family satisfaction for improving care. Consumers are also invited to join the campaign. Registration and information are available at the campaign Web site, www.nhqualitycampaign.org.

"We have seen important improvements in the quality of care in our state's nursing homes since Medicare began publicly reporting on clinical quality nearly four years ago," said Kim Downs of the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care. "But we know we must aim to accelerate improvement, so that every resident is getting the best care possible. We urge all nursing homes to register to participate in the two-year campaign."

"The Advancing Excellence campaign sets goals and measures the improvements in quality that many nursing homes are already achieving," said Chris Tobey, Executive Director. "Voluntarily signing on to work on at least three of the eight campaign goals is an important way for us to demonstrate that high quality is a top priority."

Iowa's quality improvement organization, nursing home corporations, trade associations and local colleges are working together to support the campaign by lending leadership, organizational, technical, communications and other expertise.