Over the past five years, long term care has experienced one of the most significant transformations in its history — not only in how care is delivered, but in how we learn from it.
The
Long-Term Care (LTC) Data Cooperative was born during a moment of urgency. As COVID-19 spread across the country, LTC leaders recognized a critical gap. While hospitals and other health care sectors had robust data systems to guide decisions, LTC lacked a national clinical data infrastructure capable of generating real time evidence specific to residents and care environments.
Providers, clinicians, electronic health record vendors, academic institutions, federal partners and researchers came together with a shared goal: to better understand what was happening inside nursing homes in real time.
What started as an urgent collaboration to understand COVID -19 quickly evolved into something far greater.
Now five years later, hundreds of organizations contribute clinical data that help generate real-world evidence that improves care for residents across the country. Through partnership among participating organizations – the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, Brown University, and the National Institute on Aging – the LTC Data Cooperative has evolved into a nationwide learning health system built by providers and governed by providers at its center.
This collective effort recently reached an important milestone. A peer reviewed publication in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
highlighted how the LTC Data Cooperative is enabling real world evidence using the electronic health record data across settings. The publication reflects years of collaboration and affirms that long term care now has a scientifically rigorous infrastructure capable of supporting both research and improved clinical practice.
This work also represents a new model for long term, post-acute, and assisted living care. The data is not collected for compliance alone; it is used to generate insight, inform policy, support quality improvement, and create opportunities for providers to engage directly in shaping the future of aging care.
And the greatest impact may still lie ahead.
The success of the LTC Data Cooperative demonstrates what is possible when this field works together. As participation continues to grow, so does the collective ability to accelerate innovation, strengthen clinical decision-making, and ensure that LTC communities remain a leader in improving outcomes for older adults.
Visit
www.ltcdatacooperative.org for more information. Please also reach out to LTCDataCooperative@AHCA.org with questions or for additional information on how to get involved.