Measurement of actions of care-providers in long-term care

While measurement of the actions of providers (process) are a vital part of assessing the quality of care in long-term care settings, instruments that are appropriate to such measurement in program evaluation, auditing staff performance, and evaluation of continuing education programs are often unavailable. Long-term care providers are therefore faced with the challenge of either selecting an instrument from the few available or constructing a new one. This article describes several scientifically acceptable measurement properties for instruments measuring the actions of long-term care providers and their application to instruments reported in the long-term care literature. Only five of the 23 instruments reviewed met four or more of the seven measurement properties.