THE NURSING HOME INSPECTION PROCESS

I am only personally acquainted with the nursing home inspection process in two US States, but in talking to my colleagues, it looks generally the same throughout the country.  

The process seems to be designed to be intimidating, antagonistic, wasteful, and conducted by survey teams who are inadequately trained to seek the best outcomes from what I believe should be the intent and purpose of these inspections. The process is myopic and not designed to see the full picture as to what is going on in the individual facility.

What I’m trying to say is what good does it do the nursing home resident if the people who are assigned their care are, in my opinion, abused by a system that totally misses the mark.  

After all, we’re all in this for the same reason – ensuring a quality life for our residents.  Treating long term care providers as some sort of hurtful criminal helps no one and is in fact, counter- productive. 

How would it be if the survey inspection (called “surveillance” mind you, like it’s an FBI stakeout) was more designed as a positive learning experience.  

Why can’t the surveyors be allowed and encouraged to share best practices that they observed in other facilities?  Why are these regulators not partners in the whole purpose of even operating these facilities? 

Please don’t take me wrong; resident abuse in any way, shape , or form is totally unacceptable and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  But the inspection process must be redirected and redesigned before there is any chance that our objectives can be achieved.  

Some estimates show that the United States spends somewhere between $758 Billion and $1.4 trillion for long term care services per year (2018 study). And yet with all of that money, the system remains broken. 

This certainly is not the whole fault of the survey process, but I’m convinced that correcting this problem is a darned good start!