Title: POLICY UPDATE-- Nursing Home Staffing Rule
Author:
Section/SPIG: Aging & Public Health
Issue Date:
Since 1991, when APHA policy called for enactment of minimum staffing standards for nursing homes (Resolution 9106), there has been little federal legislative action, despite repeated exposes of inadequate staffing. Recently a first step toward addressing the problem was enacted in the Benefit Improvement and Protection Act of 2000, which mandated that facilities post a daily count of the number of nursing services staff (RN, LPN, CNA) on duty on each shift. The intent, presumably, is for the public is to be empowered with information so families and residents can be wise consumers.
This February, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule to standardize the posting procedure (Federal Register, February 27, 2004, pp. 9282-9288). It would require that total staffing for the facility be posted daily for each shift. However, this would not show how individual nursing units are staffed, and would be virtually impossible for staff, residents, ombudsmen, and surveyors to monitor.
The rule could actually be made verifiable and useful to families and residents if it required that staffing be posted for each nursing unit, for each shift, with each staff person listed by name.
The comment period for submitting statements for the record is now closed, but people can still talk to their congressmen and the administration and request that they press for the rule to be strengthened so the information might be of practical value to the public.