Nursing Home Resident Are Entitled to Quality of Life
Quality of Life. Minnesota is ranked number one when it comes to long-term care in the country, but a study conducted by the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health has shed some light on why. It was found that staffing is the key to ensuring the quality of life in a nursing home, but that does not mean that every nursing home in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and throughout Minnesota have adequate staff. In fact, staffing has been blamed for a number of issues that include malnutrition, dehydration, wandering, and elopement, and other matters that show the patients have not been adequately supervised.
More About Nursing Home Quality of Life Requirements
Quality of Life (QOL) incorporates different aspects of the lives of residents. This includes their social engagement, relationships with staff, and how they enjoy their food. Quality of care tends to be studied more than QOL when both are equally important when measuring long-term care. The School of Public Health’s study looked at a broad range of factors within facilities and found that those who invested more money into their activity staff and registered nurse hours had higher QOL scores than those who employed fewer RN hours and activity staff.
Minnesota is one of only two states in the U.S. with a state-wide survey to interview nursing home residents in order to assess their quality of life. In 2006, Minnesota put a performance-based incentive payment program in place as an alternative to the standard pay-for-performance program. PIPP participation is one of the factors that the study authors examined.
There were a total of six components that were looked at and they were personal attention from staff, satisfaction with the environment, food enjoyment, mood, and social engagement.
By showing that putting more emphasis on RN hours and activity staff made for a better quality of life, it shows that the investments can pay off when it comes to attracting new residents, so it is important for the facilities to recognize that fact and make the necessary changes so that the residents are safer and the facilities more organized.
It was also found that larger facilities house more residents with health problems, nursing home nonprofit status tend to have higher QOL scores, facilities that participated in PIPP showed improvements in QOL scores over time, and for every additional hour residents spent with the activity staff daily, there was a 9-point increase in the social engagement score and an 8-point increase in the food enjoyment score.
Minnesota is a leader in setting the policy standards for nursing home quality of care and quality of life, especially when finding that PIPP participation improved it even more. QOL is something that is relevant to other states and something they could use to improve their nursing homes from staffing to how the residents feel about where they live.
Improve the Quality of Life of Residents – Report Abuse and Neglect
For more information from the Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Health Facility Complaints concerning nursing homes, assisted living and other elder care providers view resolved complaints at the MDH website.
If you have concerns about financial exploitation or any other form of elder abuse injury or neglect contact Minnesota Elder Abuse Attorney Kenneth LaBore toll free at 612-743-9048 or toll free at 1-888-452-6589 or by email at KLaBore@MNnursinghomeneglect.com.
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