Elder care monitors dwindle in Oklahoma
Groups concerned about dropping state Health Department revenue affecting inspections
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BY WENDY K. KLEINMAN
Published: November 16, 2008
Understaffing at the state Health Department is delaying inspections at Oklahoma’s 670 long-term care centers, officials said.
Funding is the problem and the staff shortage is particularly affecting assisted living, residential care and adult day care centers. There are only two inspectors overseeing 250 such locations. That’s down from as many as seven inspectors last year, and long-term care division chief Dorya Huser said she needs 10.
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Problem grows
The agency’s ombudsman program uses supervisors and volunteers to consistently visit with and help residents in long-term care centers, and can advise people looking for such a place. Huser and Karen Elliott, an Area Agency on Aging ombudsman supervisor, said assisted living centers are increasingly taking care of residents who need more medical services, in part because families don’t want to move a loved one too many times. But that burdens the care sites and may be the reason for the rise in complaints to the aging agency. "The number of complaints (about assisted living centers) has definitely gone up over the past five years, and we’re getting more complaints about the level of care,” Elliott said. The state needs to make sure care centers are monitored consistently, said Wes Bledsoe, founder of the long-term care reform group A Perfect Cause, because care quality generally improves when surveyors show up and then slips as time passes.Just keeping up
The Health Department’s two assisted living investigators do complete site surveys when complaints are lodged, Huser said. They try to follow the same guidelines set for nursing homes: two business days to investigate complaints involving immediate jeopardy to a patient, and 10 days on complaints involving lesser degrees of harm. "We have never met that,” Huser said of the latter time frame. Nursing home surveys are a priority because the division could lose federal money. The department gets no money for checking on assisted living centers, she said. The Health Department division doesn’t have enough money to cover rising personnel benefits and travel costs, Huser said. Annual nursing home surveys can take up to 10 days if a surveyor finds many deficiencies.
Related Topics:
Culture and Lifestyle, Aging and the Elderly, Special Interest Groups, Social Issues
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