The Association Between the Presence of Medical Care and Resident Outcomes in Canadian Nursing Homes: a Retrospective Cross-Sectional Analysis

The quality of medical care provided to older residents in nursing homes may depend upon available staffing models; this study examined the relationship between physician and nurse practitioner (NP) presence, care involvement, and resident outcomes. The secondary analysis of data collected in the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) study during 2019-20 included items on daily presence of physicians and NPs on units, physician involvement in care planning, and ability to contact physician or NP when necessary linked to routinely collected Resident Assessment Instrument-Minimum Data Set version 2.0 data. Eight logistic regression models tested the association between measures of staffing involvement and each outcome (antipsychotic use without indication (APM), physical restraint use, hospital transfers, and polypharmacy). The sample consisted of 10,888 residents across 320 care units in 90 facilities. Of the units, 277 (86%) reported a physician or NP visited daily, 160 (72.1%) reported that the physician was involved in care planning, and 318 (99%) units reported that the physician or NP could be reached when needed. Following adjustment for multiple confounding variables, there were no statistically significant associations between presence/involvement of medical professionals and resident outcomes (for example, physician or NP presence on the unit and hospitalization transfers [AOR=1.17, 95% CI: 0.46-3.10] or polypharmacy [AOR=1.37, 95% CI: 0.64-2.93]). We found non-significant associations between medical staff presence and involvement and selected resident outcomes, suggesting either the presence of many unaccounted for confounding inter-related resident-care provider variables or underlying insensitivity of the available data.