Professional association membership by nursing facility administrators and quality of care.

This article compares 4,220 nursing homes whose administrators belonged to a long-term-care professional association to 12,322 nursing homes whose administrators did not belong to a long-term-care professional association. The research results show that professional membership is associated with higher quality of care on several measures and with a higher private-pay proportion. The study suggests that these facilities do not do better because they have more resources or because they care for less-challenging residents-they do better because they have a professional association as a resource.