Is there an organization that anks nursing facilities?
There’s a lot of good sources for information about nursing facilities and how they perform, thanks to the fact that it’s such a highly regulated industry. There are quality indicators that are followed, that are required by Medicare as part of the MDS documentation, which is a very big form called the minimum data set. But it’s really not minimal at all – it’s quite extensive. Obviously, either somebody in the military or the federal government dreamed that one up. It’s got information about things like how many people have a decline in their functional capacity, how many people develop bed sores, things that have to do with infections and continence, and a lot of things like that. There’s also survey teams that come around. Usually the federal government contracts out to state agencies to do the actual inspections and they typically write deficiencies. A great majority of surveys do wind up with some deficiencies, so don’t be alarmed if you’re looking at a building and see that it go
