As I mentioned in my last post, looking at state nursing home surveys can be a very helpful tool in your quest to learn more about a particular nursing home.
Now I will walk you through the information you can find at the New Mexico Division of Health Improvement website.
In Step 1, you choose your provider type from the drop-down menu. "Nursing Homes" is the third entry from the bottom.
For Step 2, you can search by city, county, or provider name. If you are trying to look at all nursing homes in Albuquerque or Bernalillo County, the result list may be too long; if you have difficulties, you can narrow it to just one particular nursing home.
Once you have the information screen for a particular nursing home, it will show you the facility's name, address and phone number. It tells you its Medicaid, Medicare, License number, and License expiration date. It also tells you the name of the nursing home's current administrator, who owns the nursing home, and how many beds it has.
There are three icons directly below this information: View Map, View Reports, and View Statistics. For our purposes, we are going to focus on "View Reports."
Once you've followed that link, you will have a listing of surveys conducted at this facility. Usually, the most recent survey appears first. It will tell you the type of survey--"health" or "life safety code"; the event ID; the dates the surveyors were at the facility; and the highest citation code. It will also let you look at the survey itself, via a link at the bottom of that section.
For your purposes, the most important information is likely contained within the "highest citation code" section, and the most recent surveys themselves.
Next to the "highest citation code," if there is a code, you will see a link for the "Scope/Severity Grid" next to it. (If there is no code, that means that no violations were found in that survey.)
This grid is very helpful in understanding the severity of the problems that the surveyors noted at the nursing home. The letter that appears in front of the "highest citation code" will correspond to a letter on the grid. An "A" code shows that the problem was isolated and did not actually cause harm to anyone, but has some chance of causing minimal actual harm to the residents. At the other end of the spectrum, an "L" code violation means that there was widespread conduct that caused immediate jeopardy to the residents' health or safety.
Once you've gotten a sense of the severity of the problems, you can view the survey itself. "Health" surveys typically discuss resident treatment and resident rights. "Life Safety Code" surveys typically discuss the physical condition of the facility, and whether it is in compliance with fire and other safety codes.
The top of the survey has administrative information. What interests us, though, is the narrative in the left-hand column: "Summary Statement of Deficiencies."
Here, assuming violations were found in the survey, you will see a description of the violation. First, the surveyor states the language from the regulation that they are using to guide them. This is followed by what the facility did that was not in compliance with the regulation. It will typically say that "this REQUIREMENT is not evidenced by...", and then describes the problem(s) the surveyors observed at the facility.
On the right-hand side, the facility writes its "Plan of Correction," which includes a response to the survey's criticism, and a plan of action to remedy the deficiencies the surveyors cited.
These surveys are often fairly dense and can be hard to read, but hopefully, they will help provide you with another tool when you have the difficult task of choosing a nursing home for a loved one.
