News
Virginia Ranks in Bottom 10 for Nursing Home Staffing
Posted on Jan 29, 2009
U.S. News and World Report just published its rankings of the worst states in the nation for nursing home staffing. Virginia ranked No. 8 from the bottom. The conclusion was based on data from Medicare. Medicare recently ranked nursing homes on a scale from 1-5 stars. Of Virginia's 263 nursing homes, more than one third of the nursing homes earned only 1 star.
The implications of Virginia's poor rankings are serious. Over 1/3 of nursing homes in Virginia are not providing adequate staff to care for their patients. With insufficient staff, patients are at risk for not being turned, fed, bathed or properly medicated. Those patients are prone to develop pressure ulcers, malnutrition, infections, falls, and other injuries.
The reasons why nursing homes in Virginia are understaffed is debatable. In my opinion, the nursing home industry is placing profits over caring for patients. As the most expensive part of operating a nursing home is staffing, the surest way to increase profits is to under-staff the facility. Others argue there is a shortage of available nurses and nurses aides willing to work in nursing homes, but that also can be tied to profits. If nursing homes would provide fair compensation more nurses would be willing to care for patients in nursing homes.
The solution is two fold: (1) We should all contact our elected officials and let them know that nursing homes should be required to have minimal staffing levels sufficient to provide quality care. (2) We need to reverse the incentives to nursing homes by making it expensive to provide poor care. This is accomplished by holding nursing homes accountable in a court of law for neglecting and abusing their patients. Ultimately, if the cost of defending poor care exceeds the cost of providing good care, nursing homes will hire more nurses and improve the quality of care provided to their patients.
If you believe a loved one is a victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, please feel free to contact us by email or call us at (804) 288-1661 to discuss your legal rights.
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