A recent report published by the New York Times found that nearly 95% of American nursing homes had health or safety standard violations last year. Interestingly, nonprofit nursing homes were found to have fewer violations than for-profit institutions.
The report, which was authored by Daniel R. Levinson of the Department of Health and Human Services, concluded that approximately 17% of nursing homes had technical violations so severe as to pose an actual threat of physical harm or immediate jeopardy to the patients being cared for.
Some of the problems cited included delivering the wrong medication to patients, allowing bedridden patients to develop bedsores, as well as malnutrition and general patient neglect. Last year, inspectors from the Department Of Health And Human Services received over 35,000 complaints concerning substandard conditions in long-term care facilities. About 20% of the complaints concerned allegations of patient abuse or neglect.
In the United States, nearly 70% of all nursing homes are run by for-profit companies; most of the remaining homes are operated by nonprofit organizations. Only about 6% of US nursing homes are maintained by state or federal government programs — the lowest percentage in the industrialized world.
The Department of Health and Human Services report showed that 94% of for-profit facilities were cited for irregularities and deficiencies in 2007. 91% of government run facilities were cited, while 88% of nonprofit nursing homes were found to have violations.
Inspector Levinson issued a statement about the shoddy condition of American nursing homes, noting that many of the facilities, “…systematically fail to provide staff in sufficient numbers and with appropriate clinical expertise…” Research has consistently shown that nursing homes with higher staff to patient ratios receive less violations and consumer complaints.
Approximately 1.5 million Americans live in a nursing home, and there are approximately 15,000 homes in the country. Typically, the facilities are inspected at least once every year, and are required to meet federal standards in order to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Approximately two thirds of all nursing home inhabitants receive either Medicaid or Medicare funding, and most for-profit nursing homes would quickly go bankrupt without the support of these programs, which payout more than $75 billion annually on behalf of patients in the facilities.
The report also concluded that some states had a far greater proportion of deficiencies in their nursing homes. Alaska, Wyoming and Idaho, for example were found to have deficiencies in 100% of their nursing homes. While states like Rhode Island had deficiencies in 76% of their facilities. Rhode Island was in fact the state with the fewest deficiencies per nursing home on average. On the other end of the spectrum, Delaware topped the list with an average of 13.3 deficiencies for each nursing home in the state.
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