In accordance with state law, the Ohio Department of Aging collects an annual fee from nursing and residential care facilities to help support the cost of the Ohio Long-Term Care Consumer Guide, including the family and resident satisfaction surveys.

The purpose of the surveys is:

• To increase long-term care facility awareness of resident satisfaction with their services
• To aid long-term care facilities in making quality improvement plans
• To provide an online public report that will help people who are looking for a long-term care facility make informed decisions about long-term care for themselves or their loved one(s)

• Interviewers complete a comprehensive training that includes classroom instruction and practical experience conducting supervised interviews of residents. Interviewers learn how to administer a structured interview the same way to each resident. They are taught to approach each resident with a positive attitude, believing that they will be able to provide opinions about their experience at the facility. Interviews may only begin once a resident consents to participate. If the resident does not consent or is unable to consent, the interviewers are trained to thank them for their time and approach another resident.
• If a resident offers no response or gives answers that are not responsive to four questions in a row, the interview is discontinued, and the resident is thanked for their time. If a resident becomes tired during an interview, the interviewer may return later in the day to complete the interview.
• Interviewer training stresses that interviewers are to remain neutral at all times and are not there to observe/evaluate the facility themselves. Interviewers have a unique role, serving as the voice to hear and record resident opinions.
• Experienced Quality Assurance Mentors visit all interviewers, conducting quality assurance activities and providing reinforcement and corrective feedback.

• Yes! All surveys are recorded on a handheld mobile device and submitted directly to an independent research organization, Vital Research. The survey uses identification numbers assigned by Vital Research to keep answers confidential. Vital Research does not disclose the names of residents who participated in an interview. Individual resident surveys are destroyed at the end of the survey project. All results are reported as facility averages which ensures protection of individual respondents.
• The family survey is also confidential, and responses are collected via mail, online, and phone.

The resident interview is brief and takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. The family survey is also brief and takes about 5-10 minutes to complete.

• The Resident Surveys for residential care facilities and nursing facilities have been specifically designed and tested for use with this population, including residents with memory loss, cognitive impairments, and other disabilities.
• By inviting residents across abilities and experiences to participate, the survey provides a robust picture of life in the facility. The philosophy of this survey is to be as inclusive as possible. A more inclusive survey process not only leads to more reliable, accurate results, it is ethical to try to include all residents’ perspectives.

Interviewers are trained on techniques to include the responses of residents across the range of disabilities. The interviewers are trained on how to interview residents with cognitive impairments, including how to handle challenging situations, and when to discontinue an interview if a resident is not willing or able to participate. Interviews that are discontinued because the resident is unable to respond are not used in scores or public reporting.

Some interviewer techniques include:

• Providing yes/no answer choices
• Knowing when to stop an interview (e.g., four non-responsive answers in a row)
• How to appropriately redirect a resident back to the survey question, as needed
• When to repeat a question or ask a probe
• Asking an approved probe question to clarify survey questions if needed
• Using large-print answer cards so residents can see possible answer choices
• Being flexible by interviewing residents at different times of the day, as needed

Researchers have found minimal differences in survey responses between residents in memory care units versus other residents. For nursing facilities, results are statistically risk adjusted (for resident cognitive impairment, physical impairment, age, and gender, and for size and location of the facility), to make public reporting as fair as possible.

• Allowing an independent third party (Vital Research) to randomly sample residents reduces the potential for bias.
• Interviewers are trained to approach residents themselves, to see if they are interested in participating, but may ask staff for assistance with locating residents, when needed.

• Many studies have shown that staff and families provide different answers from one another and different answers from residents. Each group’s opinions are important, but they cannot substitute for one another.
• We encourage families to complete the Family Satisfaction Survey so that we can collect diverse perspectives