Ending Nursing Home Abuse: Nursing Home Offers Incentive for Improved Care

Elder abuse legislation has been expanded by CMS for the first time in 15 years.

Typically, articles shared on this site are critical of the poor care that nursing homes are allegedly caught providing or not providing for that matter. In this case, the situation being highlighted here is innovative and moving to end nursing home abuse.

An article on Syracuse.com by James T. Mulder, a Syracuse area nursing home is providing incentives for the improvement of care in its facility. According to the article, Bishop Rehabilitation and Nursing Center’s union employees will receive bonuses for the reduction of bedsore and fall incidents at the facility.

The article states that:

The agreement between Bishop, formerly known as James Square, and 1199SEIU includes a wage incentive program that gives workers lump sum increases for meeting quality benchmarks.

“We took over a struggling facility both financially and operationally and found a true partner in the turnaround with 1199,” Edward Farbenblum, who bought the 440-bed nursing home in December, said in a prepared statement.

The new contact calls for the creation of a committee, made up of certified nurse aides, to improve resident care. Under the agreement, Bishop has also agreed to provide tuition reimbursement for employees who continue their nursing education.

Often times a common cause of bedsores and falls are understaffing and lack of education. According to the article, Bishop is attempting to curb these common causes.

According to research published by PHI National, the following are nursing home employee statistics:

• The poor quality of nursing assistant jobs makes it difficult for nursing homes to attract and retain enough workers to meet demand.
• Nursing assistants earn a median hourly wage of $11.87, and a median annual income of $19,000.
• Half of nursing assistants have completed no formal education beyond high school. Because nursing assistant jobs require little education, experience, or training, it is an accessible occupation for workers who encounter educational or language barriers when seeking employment.
• Nursing assistants outnumber any other occupation employed in nursing homes by a factor of at least three to one. The number of nursing assistants, 612,000, has remained relatively constant over the past 10 years.
•  Nursing assistants spend more time than any other nursing staff assisting residents, providing a median of 2.4 hours of hands-on care per resident per day. Their frequent interactions with residents enable them to observe changes in resident condition and report these changes to licensed nursing staff.
• Nursing assistant jobs are primarily government-funded. Of the industry’s $116 billion in annual revenue, 73 percent is paid for by public programs, primarily Medicare and Medicaid.
• Nursing assistants are 3.5 times more likely to be injured on the job than the typical U.S. worker.
• Low annual earnings result in a relatively high rate of poverty among nursing assistants: 17 percent live below the federal poverty line, compared to 9 percent of all U.S. workers.
•  Because poverty rates are high among nursing assistants, nearly 40 percent rely on some form of public assistance.
• The uninsured rate among nursing assistants is 20 percent. A little more than half have employer-sponsored insurance, while one in five rely on public coverage, most often Medicaid.
• The following charts were published as well:

While this is no excuse for poor care or injuries from bedsores or falls, it puts in perspective how important innovations like the bonus system at Bishop could be in reducing the number of these incidents.

Bedsores are typically the result of poor care or lack of care on the nursing homes part.Bedsores might be a sign of neglect, and neglect can affect residents in other ways, too—dehydration, malnutrition, falls from lack of monitoring, even infections caused by inadequate dressing changes or unsanitary conditions.

When a nursing home neglects obvious conditions, it can rise to the level of abuse.

Nursing home neglect contributing to bed sores can include:

• Bedbound or wheelchair bound (immobile) residents to remain in the same position for too long
• Failing to provide proper nutrition or fluids, which can make residents extremely vulnerable to skin breakdown, infections, sepsis, and death
• Allowing residents to have moist skin for too long, from not changing soiled adult diapers or wet bed sheets.
• Failing to check residents regularly skin problems
• Failing to notify the family and physician upon development of sores so that proper treatment may be rendered

Nursing homes are also required by federal and Ohio regulations and laws to notify designated representatives—and doctors—of significant changes in condition.  Nursing home bedsore lawyers should know these regulations inside and out.  This is not just another “personal injury” case.

If you are concerned that your loved one suffered from neglect that resulted in bedsores, please feel free to contact me here or comment below. It is important to speak with a knowledgable nursing home abuse lawyer when it comes to bedsores. Let me help you navigate through the process of holding nursing homes accountable.

You can access the article on Syracuse.com here.

You can access the PHI National research here.