Two new resources from AHRQ are part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to protect nursing home residents and staff from COVID-19. Both are intended to support the use of observational audits, which help facilities understand if staff members are fully complying with infection prevention practices:

• Competency Check vs. Observational Audit: Validate Nursing Home Staff Performance to Improve Infection Prevention Processes for COVID-19.
  This comparison tool helps skilled nursing facilities differentiate between competency validation for regulatory compliance and observational auditing for quality assurance performance improvement activities.
• Observational Audits: A Pathway to Improving Infection Prevention and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19.
  This step-by-step guide helps facilities establish a process for observational auditing to provide a true assessment of performance in the actual work environment, and helps facilities collect data to support improvements in infection prevention.

The new tools are provided as part of the AHRQ ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network. A partnership between AHRQ, the University of New Mexico’s ECHO Institute and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the network provides free training and mentorship on infection prevention and safety practices.

Questions?

Contact:

Laura Hofmann, MSN, RN – Director of Clinical and Nursing Facility Regulatory Services
c: 425-231-4804