What is the value of quality of care?
This national study examines whether and how long-term care facilities are willing to invest in geriatric nursing expertise.
The aim is to provide evidence-based foundations for workforce planning, financing models and health policy decisions in long-term care.

Background

Unplanned hospital admissions are part of everyday practice in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) and place a burden on residents, their relatives, and care institutions alike. For residents, such transfers are often associated with stress, functional decline, and disorientation. For facilities, they create additional coordination efforts and financial losses due to vacant beds.

Research suggests that many of these hospital admissions could be avoided — particularly through strengthening geriatric expertise within care teams. Nursing professionals with advanced geriatric knowledge and competencies can detect health changes earlier, support clinical decision-making, strengthen interprofessional collaboration, and enable acute situations to be managed more frequently within the facility itself.

In this context, we are conducting a national survey.

Purpose of the Survey

This study aims to understand how leaders in long-term care facilities assess the added value of enhanced geriatric nursing expertise and how willing they are to invest in personnel resources that contribute to reducing unplanned hospital admissions.

The survey is aimed at:

• Executive management
• Directors of nursing
• Other decision-makers responsible for staffing or budgeting

Survey Content

The survey covers five areas:

• Facility characteristics – background information comparable to SOMED statistics
• The issue and a potential solution – presentation of an illustrative case example
• Willingness to pay – assessment of potential investment in advanced geriatric expertise
• Attitudes and opinions – perspectives on reducing unplanned hospital admissions and geriatric expertise
• Demographic information – general background information about you

Participation and Data Protection

Participation is voluntary and anonymous. There are no right or wrong answers — what matters are your personal and facility assessments and experiences.

Duration: approximately 20–40 minutes

Why Your Participation Matters

The results will provide an important basis for:

• cost–effectiveness analyses
• workforce planning in long-term care
• financing discussions
• health policy decision-making

The overall goal is to improve residents’ quality of life while reducing avoidable burdens for care institutions and the healthcare system.

The results will be published on this website from autumn 2026.

Participate in the national survey now

To participate, you will need the following information:
1) Information about your facility (comparable to SOMED statistics)
2) Salary tables of the nursing staff

Research Team

Sarah Holzer — PhD Student
Dr Jana Bartáková — Health Economist
Prof Dr Franziska Zúñiga — Principal Investigator

Institute of Nursing Science, University of Basel

Contact: intercare-nursing@unibas.ch

Go directly to the survey:

Participate in the survey now!

To participate, you will need the following information:
1) Information about your facility (comparable to SOMED statistics)
2) Salary tables of the nursing staff