Don’t put much faith in the Quality Measures of a nursing home as listed on the Medicare.gov site.
This is a quote from the site – “Nursing homes are rated overall and on health inspections, nursing home staffing and quality measures. More stars are better. *Note: The Quality Measure ratings are taken from data submitted by the nursing home …”
The for-profit facility I have personal experience with indicated the following:
1) Percentage of long-term residents physically restrained – 2%. This must be the percent of residents restrained in their beds, for at least 25% are in wheelchairs with “lap buddies” to keep them in the chairs. While this may be a safety necessity for some, it is what it is – restraint, so list it as such!
2) Percentage of residents with moderate to severe pain – 2%. Let’s see – my mother was one and another resident who was very coherent told me, “I’m in pain all of the time, but I guess it’s just a part of being old.” That’s 2 out of 60 which equals 3%, and I didn’t ask the other 58! Research shows that a majority of nursing home residents have some form of pain.
3) The presence of resident and family councils – YES. If this were true, they hid them from us. Our experience was that of being ignored or responded to as if we were interfering with their chosen methods of care.
Try to talk confidentially with residents and/or their family members. Ask them what they have experienced and what they have observed. They can paint the real picture for you.
