GAO Report

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report this week showing that a substantial portion of surveys of nursing homes by state regulators failed to identify significant deficiencies.  The report indicates that “during fiscal years 2002 through 2007, about 15 percent of federal comparative surveys nationwide identified state surveys that failed to cite at least one deficiency at the most serious levels of non-compliance—actual harm and immediate jeopardy.”

 

The New York Times described the findings of the GAO report: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/washington/15health.html?_r=1&sq=nursing%20home&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=2&pagewanted=print

 

For the full text of the GAO report see:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08517.pdf

 

Despite the findings in the report, Maine’s State surveyors performed better than most.  In fact, from 2002 through 2007, in twelve surveys comparing the State and federal survey results, Maine surveyors did not miss a single deficiency on the most serious levels of “actual harm” or “immediate jeopardy.”  However, on those same 12 comparative surveys, Maine surveyors missed 6 deficiencies with the potential for more than “minimal harm” to the nursing home resident.  Thus, on 50 percent of the comparative surveys analyzed by the GAO, Maine surveyors had missed at least one potentially significant nursing home deficiency.  In short, while Maine surveyors are doing better than most of their counterparts in other states, there is room for improvement.  The demands upon surveyors will only increase as Maine’s nursing home population continues to grow with the rapidly increasing elder population of the State.