Long-Term Care and the Northern Cochise Nursing Home
Website Analysis for the Northern Cochise Nursing home: the “Nursing Home Compare” web page
The Northern Cochise Nursing home has no independent home page. Its description is found under a general web page of the Northern Cochise Community Hospital (NCCH). The Nursing home is thus listed among the various services that are offered by the Northern Cochise Community Hospital.
Under the auspice of the Northern Cochise Community Hospital, the Northern Cochise Nursing home is described as follows: A brief history is given in which the nursing home is described as the first to be established in the Cochise County; the NCCH website indicates that the nursing home is under a nursing home administrator with a 24-bed capacity (Northern Cochise Nursing home, 2011). There is “a director of nursing who oversees all care aspects with a staff comprising registered nurses and certified nursing assistants” (Northern Cochise Nursing home, 2011).
In regard to the care provided, the information provided shows that the nursing home is proud of offering passionate care to its residents. Information provided reveals that the quality of care is provided by the nursing home is evidenced by the “excellent ratings that are received during the state surveys” (Splinter, Jennings, Moghabgab, Nancekivell, & Cleland, 2010). The website does not however provide any information on the said surveys. Further information provided includes how the care providers are always available, how the nursing home provides quality care through individualized care plans, and other activities such as planning for the daily activities such as welcoming volunteers from the community to share talents with the residents (Northern Cochise Nursing home, 2011).
The NCCH’s website does not really provide any information that is congruent with the deficiencies listed in the nursing home. The Information provided only depicts the nursing home in good light and may be regarded as a marketing strategy. Thus the reason why the NCCH website does not provide the information on the deficiencies may be that the differences identified are always promptly corrected by the hospital administration.
A more informative description is provided by the local nursing homes website. Under this website, all information regarding the Cochise Nursing home is provided. The information includes the inspection deficiencies; resident complaints; resident’s health quality; staffing; user ratings among others. Under this website, the home has a five-star overall rating but a three-star rating by the health inspections, complete report on the latest health inspection is provided.
The Northern Cochise Nursing home is described as a skilled nursing facility by the local nursing home’s website and also by the Arizona department of health services, however, no such information is provided by the NCCH website (Northern Cochise Nursing home, 2011).
The level of harm as revealed by the latest health inspection is not commensurate with the facility’s description of the quality provided to the residents. For instance, the NCCH website indicates that the staff is always available to assist the patients but the health inspection revealed that the nursing home did not have a registered nurse present at all the required periods. The hospital was also not disclosing information to residents regarding their health status. This is inconsistent with the information offered on the NCCH website.
Controversy over whether long term care facilities should provide information to the public when a sentinel event occurs
Whether a long-term care facility is to be forced to publicize or not to publicize sentinel events depends on the following: the factors that lead to the event should be closely analyzed in what is referred to as a root cause analysis (Hwang & Morrison, 2007). If the facility adheres to all the required protocols in its analysis followed by measures to prevent future recurrence of such events then there is no need to publicize the sentinel event. However, if the nursing home fails to adhere to the rules in the preparation of the report then the sentinel event may be publicized on that basis (Splinter, Jennings, Moghabgab, Nancekivell, & Cleland, 2010).
References
Hwang, U., & Morrison, R. S. (2007). The geriatric emergency department. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 55: 1873-1876.
Northern Cochise Nursing home. (2011). Web.
Splinter, D., Jennings, J., Moghabgab, R., Nancekivell, T., & Cleland, M. (2010). Raising the bar of care for older people in Ontario emergency departments. International Journal of Older People Nursing, 5(3): 219-226.