Instead, we often end up substituting less meaningful structural process standards, because they're easier to measure. Process standards, such as the requirement that one nursing home resident's clothing in a shared closet not touch another resident's clothing or that all medical transportation drivers receive an annual physical may be easy to check off on a survey form, but tell you precious little about the quality of life and care from the resident's perspective. Program Evaluation Program evaluations seek to test whether a method of caring or a program intervention actually produces a desired difference or result. The most reliable way to evaluate a program intervention is to randomly assign clients or residents to treatment and control groups. The treatment group receives the intervention, while the control group does not.
Random assignment minimizes the effect of other influences on the group-wide outcomes and results.
If the intervention works, you should see a desirable difference in outcomes between the control and treatment groups. However, it's often difficult to get program directors and staff to agree to a random assignment evaluation. Traditionally, in the long term care field, we haven't done quality assurance very well. In the medical model of long term care that dominated in those days, when you as the practitioner were all-knowing, you never needed to ask the patient if you wanted to to find out how you were doing. Sometimes your different customer's views, values and demands are in conflict and it's important to be aware of these conflicts .