NYT/AP: Advocate: Bad Nursing Home Care Persists

[DeepModem Mom]

Advocate: Bad Nursing Home Care Persists
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 6, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Not-for-profit nursing homes generally provide better care than those operated for profit, an analysis of state inspections for some 16,000 homes nationwide found.

Also, independent nursing homes tend to provide better care than those managed by companies that run numerous nursing homes.

Consumer Reports, which provides consumer tips, says that those conclusions are based on its evaluation of recent state inspection reports for the nursing homes. A grant from the Commonwealth Fund was used to compile a list of the facilities in each state that rank in the best or worst 10 percent on at least two indicators of quality. Researchers reviewed the three most recent inspection reports for each home.

Only a fraction of nursing homes, regardless of whether they were a for-profit or non-profit, met Consumer Reports' standards for a quality nursing home. With for-profits, only about 2 percent were classified as likely to provide good care. The non-profits fared a little better at 7.3 percent.

One reason the independently owned facilities might do better than those run by chain is that they tend to have more staff. The magazine found they also are more likely to use registered nurses....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Nursing-Homes-Care.html

[rodeodance]

1. learning to care for all is so important.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. It is my experience...

Garnered from the nursing home experiences with both my mother and my aunt, that the vast majority of nursing homes are only tangentially in the business of caring for the elderly and the infirm. Their real business is getting their hands on every last asset accrued by the patient in question.

Then, they may go ahead and let them die. They get really stroppy if said patient has the bad taste to hang on. Ain't part of the business plan, you see.

Note: This is not an indictment of the employees. Most, not all, but most care.

On the other hand, the local county-run nursing home is fantastic and has walls of awards to bear that out.