Management Practices Promoting Sustained Implementation of the Quality Register Senior Alert for Older Adults in Municipal Care in Sweden

BACKGROUND: Senior Alert is a national quality register aimed at supporting a standardized, structured, and systematic preventive care process for adults aged 65 and over in the areas malnutrition, pressure ulcers, falls, problems with oral health and bladder dysfunction. Therefore, the quality register is particularly suitable for older adults with multimorbidity. AIM: The aim was to describe management practices that contributed to the sustained implementation of the quality register Senior Alert in municipal elderly care in Sweden. METHODS: The design of this pilot study was descriptive and inductive. The sample of n = 12 included managers (n = 7) and care staff (n = 5) at seven municipal care homes for older adults in Sweden. The study was performed between April 2014 and June 2014 using two methods: Individual interviews and nonparticipant unstructured observations. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The analysis led to the following generic categories: leading teamwork, leading a preventive care process and leading a supportive organizational structure, and to one main category: management promoting learning and quality improvement. CONCLUSION: To be sustainable, Senior Alert implementations in municipal elderly care need management. Management, by leading teamwork, a preventive care process and a supportive organizational structure, is essential for achieving learning and quality improvement.