“Who are we working for here?” Fagan asked.
While not necessarily providing a complete picture of the quality of care being provided, the inspection reports stand as the public measure of performance.Įven so, some advocates have said that the inspection process is not rigorous enough and that the state should do more to crack down on troubled homes. Results of the inspections are posted on the health department website. Inspectors make unannounced visits on average between every nine and 15 months. The state Department of Health is supposed to make sure nursing homes comply with regulations for minimum standards of care. “I wish we could stir up the community to demand it.” “There’s not a reason why we can’t have excellent health care in … nursing homes, that we can’t insist on the best for our elders,” said Rose Marie Fagan of Victor, who co-founded the Pioneer Network to bring about culture change in long-term care. The 140-bed Aaron Manor in Fairport, which like Westgate is owned by Dennis Christiano, only had eight deficiencies in the four-year period. Homes with the same ownership could vary widely in the number of deficiencies.
The 120-bed New Roc - known as Blossom North until 2015 - was seventh out of 625 nursing homes statewide, with 62.
Of those, 38 percent were repeat deficiencies, meaning the home had been cited under the same regulation during a previous inspection.Monroe County's 34 nursing homes were cited for a combined 768 violations of state and federal regulations from 2012 through 2015, according to publicly available data.►IMPACT: One family’s lament: ‘Somebody dropped the ball’ Key findings ►METHODOLOGY: How we compiled repeat infractions ►SOLUTIONS: Nursing home solutions are difficult to come by ►TIPS: Five tips on finding a quality nursing home ►DATA: Search our database for nursing home violations In some cases, conditions that led to repeated citations were the basis of wrongful death lawsuits against facilities. Repeat deficiencies persist at some Monroe County nursing homes, potentially putting some residents at risk, two years after chronic violations of government regulations led to the closure of a Rochester home.Ī Democrat and Chronicle investigation found that more than one-third of violations cited by state Department of Health inspectors were for regulations that had been cited in previous routine or complaint inspections. Watch Video: Watchdog report: Repeat nursing home violations