Residents are more likely to suffer from physical constraints, diapers in bankrupt nursing homes: report

Diving brief:

• Residents of long -term bankruptcy health establishments are more likely to undergo unfavorable care results, according to a new working document published this week.
• Researchers found that patients were more likely to be hospitalized 90 days after admission, to report the use of personnel physical constraints and to suffer from layers than residents of non -stealth establishments.
• The increase in patient damage is partly attributable to the increase in personnel turnover following bankruptcy deposits, according to the report. During the year following a bankruptcy, weekly separations from workers increased by 10% compared to control facilities, leaving the less held responsible for patient care.

Diving insight:

The report comes in an increasingly worrying context of the impact of the bankruptcy of providers on patient care, as health systems are increasingly ensuring that unsustainable debt levels, forcing restructuring.

The team has chosen to focus on the long -term care industry because of its size, the vulnerability of patients looking for care and its dependence on public funding by Medicare and Medicaid. Senior Care also animates an important part of the bankruptcy deposits of chapter 11 on a national scale, representing nearly a quarter of the deposits between 2019 and 2024, according to a January report by Gibbons advisers.

The researchers analyzed the impact of bankruptcies of nursing houses between 2010 and early 2020, identifier 180 chain bankruptcies which Include 727 installations.

While the vast majority of bankruptcy installations included in the team sample continued to operate thanks to their restructuring, the teams said that Care had decreased.

The risk of patient hospitalization increased by 1.4 percentage points compared to those of non -bankrupt installations, which, according to researchers, represented “major prejudices for patient health”. The use of physical constraints and colors also increased by 77% and 14% of the average, respectively.

“It is important to emphasize that the increased use of physical constraints – such as the use of links, belts, suspenders, rails or other equipment to limit the movement of residents or access to their own body – is alarming,” wrote the authors. “Many patient defenders, clinicians and researchers argue that constraints are a form of abuse, because they are rarely in the interest of the patient and are mainly used for the convenience of inexperienced, incompetent or overloaded personnel. CMS shares this point of view and penalizes the use of constraints in their quality rating system for nursing homes. ”

The study also found a high use of catheters in bankrupt installations, which, according to researchers, involves an attempt to avoid helping patients to use the toilets.

Some of these negative results could be attributable to a lack of adequate personnel rather than intentional negligence.

While bankruptcy installations were generally able to hire new workers, they lose specific knowledge and expertise in facilities.

The team made several recommendations to increase the surveillance of the nursing home to repel damage during a bankruptcy procedure, noting that regulators should monitor all bankruptcies – not only liquidations and closures. The researchers also pleaded to set debt financing limits in order to reduce the number of long -term care establishments which are obliged to restructure.