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Alberta's Resident Classification System for Long-Term Care Facilities. Part I: Conceptual and Methodological Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2010

Cathy Charles
Affiliation:
McMaster University
Corinne Schalm
Affiliation:
Alberta Health*

Abstract

In 1988 the Alberta government introduced a new resident classification system to measure the nursing care requirements of long-term care facility residents, and to provide case-mix information for a new funding system. This article describes the conceptual and methodological development of the system. Specific steps in the development process were to (1) define key care domains reflecting the major types of assistance required by long-term care residents; (2) identify indicators of care requirements within each care domain; (3) develop criteria for determining which items to include in the final version of the Resident Classification Form; (4) develop decision rules for combining scores on individual items in order to group residents into categories; and (5) test the psychometric properties of the classification system. The classification system has seven categories ordered from low to high in terms of nursing care requirements and a measure of nursing resource use.

Résumé

Le gouvernement de l'Alberta introduisait, en 1988, un nouveau système de classification des résidents d'établissements de soins prolongés pour mesurer leurs besoins en soins infirmiers et pour recueillir les informations nécessaires à un nouveau système de financement. Cet article expose le développement conceptuel et méthodologique du système. Les étapes spécifiques consistaient à: (1) définir les domaines-clé qui révèlent les principaux types d'assistance requise par les résidents en soins prolongés; (2) identifier les indicateurs de demandes de soins, au sein de cheque catégorie de soins; (3) développer des critères qui détermineront les points à inclure dans la version finale du formulaire de classification des résidents; (4) développer des règles qui détermineront la combinaison des scores individuels afin de regrouper les résidents dans des catégories; (5) tester les propriétés psychométriques du système de classification, qui comporte sept catégories allant de bas à haut, en terme de besoins en soins infirmiers ainsi qu'une mesure d'utilisation des ressources de soins infirmiers.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 1992

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