Nursing Home Quality, the national leader in Quality Indicator Survey (QIS) based quality assurance solutions for long-term care providers, announced the release of the latest version of abaqisTM, a web-based quality assurance system designed for use by nursing home providers to identify quality concerns and focus quality improvement efforts.The QIS is a revised long-term care survey process utilized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that involves two stages of review. In Stage I, preliminary investigations are conducted through structured resident, family, and staff interviews, resident observations, record reviews, and analysis of Minimum Data Set (MDS) data.These tasks, in combination with structured facility reviews, yield 162 Quality of Care and Quality of Life Indicators (QCIs) that are compared with defined thresholds to identify Care Areas for further investigation in Stage II of the QIS. The second stage involves in-depth quality investigations using Critical Element Pathways that address assessment, care planning, care provision, and reassessment.The latest release of the abaqis TM system encompasses all six assessments conducted on site during Stage I of the QIS, with modules for family, staff, and resident interviews, resident observations, and census and admission record reviews. The system comprehensively guides the quality assurance efforts based on QIS concepts and processes, electronically manages the resident file, and even provides analysis of facility data based on national thresholds."I believe that the QIS has rendered the survey process more objective and more resident-centered," says Andrew Kramer, M.D., CEO of Nursing Home Quality. "However, the QIS software used in the survey process was developed solely for government surveyor use. The abaqis TM system is an affordable, user-friendly tool designed specifically for nursing home providers, allowing them to replicate the QIS for quality improvement purposes. At the end of the day, this system enables nursing homes to provide better care and quality of life to their residents."