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Government to put online names of facilities that have not improved quality; Ohio is home to none
By Kevin Freking
Associated Press
Published on Thursday, Nov 29, 2007
WASHINGTON: Fifty-four nursing homes across the country are being told by the government that they are among the worst in their states, in an effort to goad them into improving patient care.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups have been pushing the Bush administration to make it easier for consumers to identify poorly performing nursing homes. They complain that too many facilities get cited for serious deficiencies but don't make adequate improvements, or do so only temporarily.
The administration agreed, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will list the homes today on its Web site, http://www.medicare.gov. No Ohio facilities appear on the list, according to an advance copy obtained by the Associated Press.
''Very, very poor quality nursing homes do not deserve to be left untouched or unnoticed,'' said Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. ''This is not to be punitive. That's not our goal. Our goal is to see to it that the people in these nursing homes get better quality care, or that they get the opportunity to move somewhere else.''
The homes in question are among more than 120 designated as a ''special focus facility.'' The agency began using the designation about a decade ago to identify homes that need more oversight. States conduct inspections of these homes at six-month intervals rather than annually.
The homes on the list got not only the special focus designation, but also registered a lack of improvement in a subsequent survey.
The nursing homes to be cited are in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The nation has about 16,400 nursing homes.
Nursing home administrators have concerns that homes showing significant improvements will still show up on the Medicare Web site. They said it takes time for inspection results to make their way through the bureaucracy.
Still, administrators support the concept of greater disclosure, said Bruce Yarwood, president and chief executive officer of the American Health Care Association, the trade association for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
''Every time you go under a microscope like that, especially in our profession, you want to get out from under that microscope,'' Yarwood said.
One of the homes on the government's list is Franklin Hills Health & Rehab Center in Spokane, Wash. Brian Teed, the facility's administrator, said he did not have a problem with Medicare publicizing the list.
But he said regional differences play a huge role in how nursing homes are graded. He said he recently helped run a facility in Portland, Ore., and nursing homes were graded much easier there. He took over the Spokane facility in September.
''In the Portland, Ore., area, this facility would be deficiency-free or close to it. Instead, we got 15 tags. We got tagged because there was bird poop on the bench outside,'' Teed said.
WASHINGTON: Fifty-four nursing homes across the country are being told by the government that they are among the worst in their states, in an effort to goad them into improving patient care.
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