THIS shouldn’t need to be said aloud. But there are more important hires for We the People than football coaches or athletic directors. No, really.
If readers of Arkansas’ Newspaper ever had any doubts about the importance of getting it right when hiring at nursing homes—and why would they?—they might glance at this unsettling headline in the paper over the weekend: “State’s rest homes high in Rx errors/ Watchdogs report 261 ‘significant’ medication mistakes from 2013-17.”
Of the hundreds to choose from, our news staff picked one example, Linda Cooper, who was sharp as a whole boxful of tacks. Only 65, she and her people could look forward to having her around for many happy, active years ahead. She was spending her days in a nursing home in Northern Arkansas doing things like working the crossword puzzles—in ink. She had no time to waste on the less perfect. But now she’s dead. Reports say she was the victim of a careless nurse who mixed up her prescription with another patient’s at the nursing home.
Hers was just one sad story of 261 unearthed by those who keep up with the dangerous errors made by this state’s nursing homes. Call it death by default, for who’s going to keep up with such deaths except those who should be keeping a careful eye out?
It’s not as if Ms. Cooper’s experience were only incidental; it was more like a fatality just waiting to happen. From the highest-rated nursing home to the lowest-rated, the problem is epidemic in this state. Or as Martha Deaver of Arkansas Advocates for Nursing Home Residents puts it: “The outcome of these serious violations of our laws not only causes harm, but in many cases the nursing home resident does not survive. Nursing home residents are our most frail and vulnerable citizens. They are at the mercy of their nurses to make sure they receive their medications properly.”
Never mind, says Rachel Bunch of the Arkansas Health Care Association. Since errors in providing medication represent just a small fraction of the “hundreds of thousands” of medications taken every year by nursing home patients. “Any individual citation,” she says, “requires the proper response, but we don’t believe the rate is a widespread concern in Arkansas.” But it should be. Because any fatality may be only one case but altogether they represent a clear and growing danger.
Here’s what the numbers say, should anybody at the Arkansas Health Care Association want to know: Compared with other states in the official “Medicare and Medicaid Services” region, nursing homes in Arkansas have been flagged for significant medication errors at four times the rate of the other states. The average percentage of facilities cited each year in Arkansas was more than 20 percent. In Texas, it’s closer to 5.5 percent. In Louisiana—Louisiana!—it’s not even 3 percent.
Arkansas nursing homes were cited over the past five years more times than Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico combined.
And this isn’t a widespread concern? It is for those of us with loved ones in Arkansas’ nursing homes.
Surely there is something better to be done for these poor folks than just to mark their graves Rest in Peace—for there can be no peace when so many of our people are in danger. That, Gentle Reader, is cause enough for concern. Even the widespread kind.