The release of the Government Accountability Office’s report on nursing home reviews has triggered a series of articles and investigations on the quality of care-facility examinations.
Before the official report release, authorities stated that the GAO found that serious care problems were overlooked or not cited during annual nursing home investigations. As a result, compromised care remains prevalent and not addressed. According to the report, “such undetected care problems are of concern because they could become more serious over time if nursing homes are not required to take corrective actions.” The most frequently overlooked problems involved a lack of proper nutrition or hydration and failure to prevent pressure sores.
The GAO report attributes the oversights to two main causes: state surveyors’ poor investigative skills and a general inability to analyze information in order to make an accurate deficiency assessment. Since federal and state officials must investigate nursing homes in two separate examinations, the GAO made the following recommendations:
1. Require regional offices to analyze differences in state and federal examination results
2. Establish a set of quality control guidelines for federal examinations
3. Hold regional offices accountable for implementing federal recommendations to make sure examinations are as accurate as possible
4. Regularly analyze federal observations as compared to state observations
About 70% of state nursing home examinations overlooked or failed to cite at least one serious care problem. Currently, there is a system of 23 standards of care ranging from statements like “promotes prevention of pressure sore development” to “resident environment remains as free of accident hazards as possible.” According to the GAO report, if nursing homes consistently fail to adhere to federal recommendations, they may incur fines or be denied Medicare or Medicaid assistance. Hopefully, the new GAO report and its recommendations will encourage investigators to more precisely and carefully examine the quality of nursing homes, while the financial incentives will encourage homes to heed the consequent advice.
To read the full report, click on the following link:Â GAO ReportÂ