Today, it seems like it’s easier than ever to choose anything from a new house cleaning product to a restaurant to a nursing facility because we rate everything. People absolutely love sharing their opinions and those stars and reviews are actually really helpful.
When it comes to choosing a nursing home for either yourself or your aging family member, ratings can be a way of narrowing down your choices. But should you go that route? What do those ratings really mean and why do some nursing homes receive bad ones? Is it because the people working there are “bad?” Do they not like the residents so they refuse to take care of them properly or are there issues within our system?
The answer is actually both. Low ratings usually tell a story of systemic issues, not enough resources, and underpaid and overworked staff. In some instances, however, it means that the staff and administration just outright disregard the well-being of the people they’re supposed to take care of.
In this article, we’ll unpack the factors that cause these low ratings and, more importantly, what they mean for families trying to make the best decisions.
Common Reasons for Low Ratings
Did you know that 31% of nursing homes in California are rated below average? Huge number, right? But the problem isn’t just California; this problem is happening across the United States. In Florida, 28% of nursing homes are below average, and in New York, that number is 26%. Those are some very troublesome indicators for any future and current nursing home residents.
Here are the main reasons for low ratings.
- Not Enough Staff
One of the biggest reasons for low ratings is facilities being severely understaffed. A good nursing home has to have a certain number of trained, qualified staff to take care of the residents. For many facilities, this isn’t the case.
A lot of them simply don’t have enough staff to properly care for everyone. Why? Because being a caregiver is not easy, and the wages usually aren’t very impressive. It implies that since turnover rates are high, the resident frequently meets with strange people, which may disrupt the normality of their lives.
Sometimes, the staff does not possess adequate training; there can be cases when they mistake a drug or do not even remember the basics regarding proper care.
- Health Inspection Failures
Health inspections are meant to carry out evaluations in nursing homes under which the safety regulations have been followed and whether the facility is clean and safe. If they’re rated low, it usually means they have issues like dirty conditions, mistakes with medications, or safety problems like trip hazards. These problems put all the residents at risk of infections, injuries, or worse.
If a nursing home keeps failing inspections, it’s an indicator of much bigger problems in how it’s run.
- Poor Performance on Quality Measures
These measures track how well a facility cares for its residents, which includes health and safety. For low-rated facilities, this usually means they have high rates of bedsores, infections, or falls. All of these issues are a (very probable) indication that the residents aren’t receiving the proper care they deserve.
Repeated hospitalization also points to a lack of proper health care for the residents at the facility. It’s indicative of some facilities that are particularly neglectful of their residents in terms of therapies and activities for their charges, as this produces boredom and isolation for the residents with a resulting deterioration in mental health.
What Families Need to Know
If you have a family member that lives in a low-rated nursing home, it means that you’re about to face some serious challenges.
Trying to get them better care can be frustrating and exhausting because you’ll need to constantly keep an eye on both the resident and the staff, you’ll have to file complaint after complaint, and on top of that, you’ll need to wait for responses. It’s no wonder that so many families feel like they can’t make any changes, especially when issues are part of problems with the system itself.
Aside from this, you also need to think about finances. If you decide to move your loved one to another facility, it can completely overwhelm you. Relocation often means that you’ll need to pay high fees, possibly higher monthly costs (especially if the new facility is highly rated), and you’ll have to cover extra services like transportation or temporary care.
And the cherry on the cake? The emotional toll of uprooting your family member’s life. This will disrupt their routine, it can confuse them, and even make their physical and mental health decline.
Conclusion
Remember that those stars, however many there are, affect real people. It’s the residents that get the short end of the stick because they’re the ones struggling with inadequate care. For families, situations like this mean that they’re the ones having to bear both the emotional and financial side of fixing what the system should have provided, but failed to.
With the right changes, these low ratings can be used as an inspiration for future improvements.
