The Long-Term Care (LTC) Data Cooperative is the largest integrated database of detailed, normalized, electronic health record data from nursing homes in the United States. The LTC Data Cooperative, supported by the National Institute on Aging through a supplemental grant (NIA 3U54AG063546-S6) to the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory, is a dynamic collaboration led by the American Health Care Association (AHCA).

The mission of the LTC Data Cooperative is to improve the quality of care within skilled nursing facilities by compiling the most comprehensive data on nursing home residents nationwide – and to translate these data into information that is accessible and actionable.

The LTC Data Cooperative provides an invaluable and near-real time data resource that allows researchers to generate real-world evidence on different treatments and care practices for nursing home residents. Additional linkages with Medicare claims establish a data infrastructure to monitor future public health emergencies and the impact of treatment and policy changes.

Over time, the multi-year effort will serve four broad functions:

• Assist providers with health care operations, including care coordination for residents who transfer between skilled nursing facilities.
• Support public health monitoring for medical conditions and infections, including COVID-19, to be securely shared with relevant health authorities.
• Enable observational studies of the long-term care population, ranging from policy evaluations to epidemiological studies to pharmaco-epidemiological studies.
• Facilitate provider and patient recruitment into clinical research studies, including Phase 3 and Phase 4 randomized intervention trials.