| The need to properly assess---and thus improve---the quality of care in nursing homes is a growing concern. This research proposes Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) as a modeling tool to perform such assessments. Variables were selected for inclusion in each of 11 BBNs based on prior research pertaining to the quality of care in nursing homes, stepwise variable selection in a least squares regression model, and a Chi-square test of association with the quality of care. After learning the structure and parameters of the BBNs, each model was evaluated based on its ability to accurately assess the quality of care in nursing homes. The structure and parameters of the proposed model support previous research relating structure, process, and outcome measures to the quality of care. The proposed model successfully predicted the quality of care in 58% of the validation data. A larger dataset and consideration of additional measures of the overall quality of care are recommended to improve the accuracy of the proposed model. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
