Oklahoma’s nursing home ranking showed signs of life in this year’s nursing home report card by climbing five spots to No. 44, reports Families for Better Care, a national nursing home resident advocacy group based in Austin. The group published its third state-by-state nursing home report card by analyzing eight federal measures to gauge nursing home quality.
“While Oklahoma nominally improved its nursing home ranking this year, there's no cause for celebration just yet,” said Brian Lee, the group’s executive director. “The state still remains among the worst in hiring enough licensed nurses to care for residents and has an inordinately high percentage of nursing homes with severe deficiencies.”
According to the report card, Oklahoma nursing home residents received just over 80 minutes of professional nursing services every day—the nation’s third worst service rate.
“Almost 90 percent of Oklahoma’s nursing homes were understaffed in licensed nurse care,” said Lee. “Nursing homes become dangerous places to live when professional nurses are strained to properly care for residents due to ongoing staffing shortages.”
The report card also shows that the chronically understaffed facilities are seriously, negatively impacting resident care. One in four facilities were cited one or more deficiencies for the abuse and neglect of residents.
“We hope this failing nursing home report card serves as a wake up call for Governor Stitt and Oklahoma lawmakers,” said Lee. “They can reverse the state’s trend of nursing home neglect by mandating, funding, and enforcing a tough staffing standard—the residents sorely need the help.”
Oklahoma’s 2019 Nursing Home Report Card is available for download at http://www.nursinghomereportcards.com.
ABOUT FAMILIES FOR BETTER CARE
Families for Better Care, Inc. is a non-profit citizen advocacy group dedicated to creating public awareness of the conditions in our nation’s nursing homes and developing solutions for improving quality of life and care. For more information, visit http://familiesforbettercare.com.
