NURSING HOMES

CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE TO GO TO LTCCC'S NURSING HOME WEBSITE FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION, NEWS AND REPORTS ON NURSING HOME ISSUES

LTCCC is fighting to increase nursing home staffing levels and make nursing homes a safe environment for both residents and workers.  Direct care staff are the lifeline for nursing home residents.   However, the vast majority of nursing homes are deficient in staffing levels, resulting in poor care for residents and poor working conditions for staff. The Coalition works to increase staffing and resident safety by:

• Advocating for passage of a Safe Staffing bill in New York.  Many people are surprised to learn that there are no minimum standards for nursing home staffing levels.  This legislation would require nursing homes to maintain staff to care for residents at a level widely considered safe.

• Advocating for passage of a federal safe staffing bill.  LTCCC is a strong supporter of federal legislation to mandate minimum safe staffing standards in nursing homes. The Nursing Home Staffing Act of 2005 provides for staffign requirements that are pragmatic yet would help save many lives and improve the quality of life for countless nursing home residents..

• Advocating for passage of the Nursing Home Diversion Act (NHDA). The NHDA (bill # A5347) would require nursing homes with dangerously low levels of staffing to stop taking in additional residents until they take their staffing levels out of the danger level. This is exactly the same policy in place for hospital emergency rooms, which divert incoming patients to other hospitals in the area when they don't have the staff or resources to provide good, safe care.  Don't nursing home residents deserve the same treatment? (Click here for policy brief: NY State Must Stop Placing Vulnerable People into the State's Most Severely Understaffed Nursing Homes).

• Fighting against poorly trained and poorly supervised "feeding assistants."  Until recently, in order to provide care for nursing home residents, one had to at least be a certified nurse aide (CNA), with mandatory training (75 hours federal; 100 in New York) and certification under state auspices. However, the federal Department of Health and Human Services recently changed all of that, with new regulations that allow states to permit nursing homes to hire "feeding assistants" with a minimum of eight hours of training and little oversight.  Feeding is a vital service for nursing home residents who need it, one which experts know requires a great deal of skill.  We believe that permitting people with little training or oversight to come in and provide important care is dangerous and dehumanizing.  Visit LTCCC's Nursing Home Website (www.nursinghome411.org) for the latest news and information on our support of the national lawsuit to stop feeding assistants.

• Educating consumers, the news media and policy makers on the impact of low staffing on nursing home residents. (Click here to see our recent news and policy briefs page, our latest studies on nursing home oversight and more.)

• Researching long term care regulatory, policy and legal issues.  One of the major activities of the Coalition is to identify issues impacting the delivery of better and more humane care in nursing homes.  Many of our past research reports are available on the Publications page of this website (click here to view that page).  Current research projects include a national study of the use of Civil Money Penalties to improve resident care, a study of New York State ombudsman experience with complaints related to low staffing in their nursing homes and a national study of individual states' plans regarding a single point of entry (POE) for long term care. (Click here to go to our page dedicated to POE/Access to Care issues.)

 

OTHER LTCCC RESEARCH AND REPORTS    

Building upon its "Certified Nurse Aide Training "Model" Program (2002), in 2004 the Coalition released a number of reports and studies demonstrating the need for more staff and better screened and trained staff: (1) Certified Nurse Aide Screening and Continuing Education: A National Survey of State Requirements with Recommendations for Improvement, (2) LTCCC Urges New York State Leaders to Consider Costs of Poor Care (discusses the cost of poor care related to low staffing) and (3) Are the Federal Nursing Home Staff Posting Requirements Serving Consumers? a report on a year long campaign of consumer experience with postings in their nursing home(s), with recommendations for regulatory improvement.  With support from the New York Community Trust, LTCCC published two reports on improving working conditions: (1) What Makes for a Good Working Condition for Nursing Home Staff: What Do Direct Care Workers Have to Say? This study is based on focus groups conducted in six nursing homes in NYC; and (2)Improving Working Conditions for Nursing Home Direct Care Staff  A description of a project in two nursing homes in New York City and A Ten-Step Guide to Improving Working Conditions.