Bill: Staffing Standards

[Talino]

EXPECT A STAFFING STANDARDS BILL THIS WEEK

Democratic members of Congress plan to introduce a bill this week that would require nursing homes to maintain minimum staffing levels. The Nursing Home Staffing Improvement Act of 2002 calls for Medicare- and Medicaid-funded facilities to provide between 4.1 and 4.85 hours of nursing care to each resident per day, according to U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky's (D-IL) press release. The bill also recommends additional funding to support staffing standards, but authorizes extra scrutiny of nursing home finances to make sure the funds are going toward hiring more staff. Democrats announced the bill after consumers met May 9 with members of Congress to express their concerns over lack of adequate staffing in nursing homes. Quoting from the recent Bush Administration report that nine out of 10 nursing homes do not have adequate staff to provide the best care, citizens presented petitions with more than 100,000 signatures to demand staffing standards.

To check if your facility meets or already exceed this proposed standard go to...

http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/home.asp#NewSearch

Select State..,.. click on Next Step

Select County ... click Search by County

Click on box of your Facility's name... go down bottom page and click on Next Step

Click on Nursing Staff

[betts]

LOL...It listed 2 nursing homes in the county where I live with actually 7 here. Why is it that they never hardly give a "deficiency rating' higher than 2?

[RhondaRNConsult]

kinda scarey isn't it Betts??

[Fran-RN]

Want to make a bet that the standards are passed before the funding?

[Fran-RN]

Are the nursing ratios to include management nursing staff???? Its all a number game!!!!

[RhondaRNConsult]

my feelings are it all goes back to quality care.....quality of life......

Regulations come from system changes that need to be made in facilities.....

[tkagfa]

Maybe if the ratio of NURSE to resident were better the care would get better? I know there are many nights that I have too much paper work to do that I don't get out on the floor as much as I would like to. I love working in LTC and think it is very rewarding work, but....... the lack of staff sometimes really makes it hard to do a good job that you can be proud of, and of course my boss always says "you have more down time than the day shift does" I really love that one.

[oramar]

I read a study somewhere that said the last increase was spent on doing blood work and new buildings. No wonder they are tying the money to staffing this time. If they don't it will be spent on enriching the owners, stockholders and raising managment salaries.

[jenac]

Wow- great link. Very eye-opening. I just started at the facility I work for, after their annual survey. I knew they had some issues previously, but wow. Thanks for the link.