Nursing Home Abuse Icon
In October 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out the below abuse icon to alert the public that a nursing home has been identified for citations related to Resident Abuse:
A number of associations, including LeadingAge, have raised serious concerns about the abuse icon and what is communicated to the public by the use of the symbol. Among the concerns raised is that the icon makes no distinction between abuse citations that result from intentional harm or injury to a resident and citations relating to mistakes made in carrying out a caregiving task that have an unintended result of hurting a resident. The icon does not distinguish between nursing homes that take appropriate steps to correct and report an abusive incident and homes that fail to do so. In some cases, the icon can remain on Nursing Home Compare for more than a year, long after the nursing home has been determined to be back in compliance.
AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine has written to CMS outlining their objections with this approach, namely that penalties may also lead to further negativity related to a specific care setting and add to the present stigma and staff issues in U.S. nursing facilities.
Based on data gathered by LeadingAge NY, approximately 13 nursing homes in New York State have been assigned the abuse icon on Nursing Home Compare.
A December 2019 article in the journal Annals of Long-Term Care concludes that "SNF stakeholders should address the issue of this red alert symbol on a facility and national basis. On a facility basis, this means working to prevent your facility [from] falling victim to being tagged with a red hand icon."
Toward that end, LeadingAge NY ProCare has developed a one-day training focused on strengthening abuse identification, investigation, and reporting systems so as to avoid abuse citations. The training looks at the following areas:
- Reviewing policies/procedures for abuse identification/reporting;
- Analyzing sample incidents to determine completeness of the investigation and validity of conclusions;
- Educating staff on abuse (can be taped and used for orientation and yearly staff education); and
- Educating managers and those responsible for initiating and investigating abuse allegations. This session uses real case scenarios to promote interactive learning.
Contact: Elliott Frost, efrost@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8832