Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of the study was to look at perceived quality of care of veterans in VA-placed community nursing homes and to develop a template to measure quality care as perceived by veterans and their family members. This study looked at patient satisfaction as a determinant of quality of care. The premise of the assessment of quality placement is that if patients and family members are satisfied with the community nursing home in which the patient is placed, then they are satisfied with the VA community nursing home placement process, and perceive that they have received quality care in this regard. Theoretical framework. This study used two different approaches to examine the relationship between the role of the VA in providing community nursing home placement and the perceptions of patients and family members with regard to the quality of care received. The two approaches used were Program Evaluation and Patient Satisfaction. Methodology. This study was a cross sectional research study assessing only the post-placement of currently placed VA community nursing home residents and was conducted using a nonexperimental descriptive research design using survey research. A questionnaire was distributed to VA patients and their family members to measure the quality of their nursing home placement. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as one-way ANOVA and Pearson's r. Major findings. Patients and family members generally were satisfied with the quality of care provided to them at the community nursing home. Patients who had previous nursing home experience were more satisfied in the community nursing home than those who had no VA experience. While it was hypothesized that staffing ratio was expected to be correlated to satisfaction/quality of care rather than structure, process, and outcome, staffing ratios made no significant differences in the patient group to satisfaction. Conclusions and recommendations. Patients and family members were satisfied with the VA Community Nursing Home placement process. It is recommended that a survey tool be developed specifically for VA community nursing home resident satisfaction. The VA could better serve their patient population by looking at the demographics of the patient group and developing processes to improve satisfaction among Asians and Latinos.