A new nursing home site on the internet is the latest tool for those looking up nursing home ratings-adding to resource sites the state already provides.
While some see these databases as a great way to keep nursing homes in check, others worry the language may be misleading to the public.
Fort Pierce resident Cathi Odom knows better than most how important it is to do your research when picking a nursing home for a loved one. Her mom's been living at a home in Port St. Lucie since 2007.
"She's been dropped, she's fallen out of bed, she's had mrsa, had to have a toe amputated", said Odom.
MRSA is a serious infection that resists most antibiotics. Most recently , Odom says her mother had kidney failure as a result of dehydration.
"My mother was put in their hands to be taken care of and they didn't take care of her", Odom complained.
Odom recently learned that her mother's nursing home is 1 of 140 on the state's watch list. In fact, 1 out of 5 facilities in Florida are on that list for not meeting state standards, or not making corrections quickly enough. 12 of the homes have been on the watch list for more than 100 days, according to Families for Better Care, a citizen advocacy organization.
Brian Lee, executive director for Families for Better Care, says that is unacceptable.
“It is a multi, multi-billion dollar industry and they are living off the bedsore backs of our loved ones, and making profits”, Lee said.
He says the problem lies in the fact that many people don't know how to access information on nursing home violations. Lee says the public shouldn't have to search for the information - the state Agency for Health Care administration which inspects the nursing homes should be proactive in sending it out.
AHCA says they don't put out information on nursing homes that are on the watch list because that information is available on its website.
"What the agency needs to do, if they've identified a nursing home to be on a watch list, they need to send a press release to the local community that the nursing home is in", Lee said. "They need to alert people within the nursing. they probably don't know. Something needs to happen that will incentivize these nursing homes to provide better care for their residents."
Recently efforts have been made to make finding data on nursing homes easier. Sites like Nursing home Inspect 2.o, a database created by non-profit journalism organization ProPublica, makes it easier to search what fines nursing homes have had to pay and to read reports of the violations. The information comes from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The nursing home industry doesn't like the new site because it focuses on only the negative. LuMarie Polivka-West, senior director of policy and program development for Florida Healthcare Association says, that's misleading.
"So if they have 8 deficiencies, for example, out of 200 potential citations you will only see the 8 deficiencies", Polivka-West explained.
She says nursing homes always get a bad reputation for reasons that often times have nothing to do with their level of care.
"We deal with that all the time as far as negative publicity with long term care", said Polivka-West. "I think it's a reflection of the predominantly negative perspective of the aging process in our country and what happens to people at the end of their life in old age."
She says over the past two years, federal data shows that quality ratings for Florida nursing facilities have improved, with the number of top facilities increasing. Meanwhile, the number of centers that got the lowest ratings have decreased.
She says the best way to pick a home for a loved one is plain and simple: visit it. Talk to the residents, talk to the staff, use the information from the web sites, but don't rely only on what you read.
