ForProfit Nursing Homes Yet Another Study Suggests Poorer Quality than Counterparts

Profit motive or patient-centered?

We have written about this before, the for-profit versus not-for-profit dilemma.

Yet another study by the University of California at San Francisco research team led by Charlene Harrington, RN, Ph.D., and backed by the Service Employees International Union, suggests that lower levels of nursing staff in large for-profit nursing home chains have resulted in substantially lower quality of care when compared to government-owned or non-profit nursing homes.

Researchers compared staffing levels and facility deficiencies received by the United States' 10 biggest nursing home chains, versus facilities run by five other types of ownership groups. Between 2003 and 2008, the for-profit facilities had fewer nurse "staffing hours," researchers said. The 10 largest nursing home chains received 36% more deficiencies from regulators, according to the study. Additionally, the for-profit sites received more deficiencies after being purchased by private equity groups than before the purchases. And this is totally independent of accusations by those outside the industry that not all medical errors and deficiencies are reported. No wonder healthcare attorneys have no shortage of work!

Listen we can argue this until we're blue in the face (or is that red?). And everyone can manipulate statistics to show their case that the data is flawed. But here's the thing. The public hears about these studies and reads about them. They don't retain much. They retain the headlines. And the headline reads that for-profits are bad for you. No amount of ad campaigns to dispel that will help. People are going to start paying attention to profit status when it comes to decision making for mom and dad.

So lesson to the industry - start performing better on the metrics that mean something so that when studies are done you will look better. That is your public relations. Unfortunately people can poke apart an ad campaign by pointing to the myriad of studies continuing to suggest that for-profit nursing homes have poorer quality. And of course going with that is the unspoken - for-profits only care about the money.

While I do not believe that, remember we are working with perceptions out there. And the long-term care arena has a huge image problem especially in the for-profit sector.

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