Jocelyn Wiener, Kaiser Health News Use Our Content
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Earlier this yr, the state Department of Public Health launched a new website, Cal Health Find, meant to assist folks examine the standard of nursing properties and different well being care services.
Now, California nursing dwelling advocates are calling on the state to take it down, saying the brand new website is incomplete, inaccurate and “a huge step in the wrong direction.”
The state describes the web site as a user-friendly alternative for its earlier instrument, the Health Facilities Consumer Information System. Among different issues, state officers say the brand new website permits customers to check as much as three services at a time, improves compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and provides language translation instruments.
But the nonprofit group California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform says these extras are of little use as a result of the content material itself is mistaken. The group complains of inaccurate criticism counts for problematic nursing properties and lacking hyperlinks to inspection stories filed earlier than 2016.
“Choosing the right nursing homes can be a life-and-death decision,” stated Michael Connors, an advocate with the group. “This site should help them avoid places that are likely to neglect them. Right now, it will do the opposite.”
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State officers argue that the positioning is a piece in progress that’s being refined, with updates to criticism counts coming this week. The new website price about $437,000 to construct and function, officers stated.
“The department has acknowledged and identified the source of the problem [with complaint counts] and has already implemented a correction plan,” Corey Egel, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health, stated in a written assertion. “The department believes Cal Health Find improves the user experience. … We find no reason to remove the site while we correct errors.”
Deborah Pacyna, a spokeswoman for the California Association of Health Facilities, which represents nursing properties, stated her group additionally has shared some issues in regards to the information with the state, however she declined to present additional particulars. She added that some nursing properties have been complaining that footage from Google Earth didn’t precisely mirror their services, as a substitute displaying solely the road or a again parking zone. She repeated the state’s assertion that the positioning is a piece in progress.
Connors stated she stays skeptical that the state is taking the issues critically.
The state’s previous web site continues to be up, though it refers folks to the brand new website. A comparability of its information with that obtainable on Cal Health Find confirmed marked discrepancies.
For instance, the state’s previous web site reveals that 90 complaints have been made in opposition to Lake Merritt Healthcare Center in Oakland in 2017. The new web site reveals solely 34 for a similar yr. Similarly, whereas the previous web site lists 49 complaints in opposition to San Diego Healthcare Center in 2017, the brand new web site lists solely 13.
Officials provided a fancy clarification for the discrepancies, together with that the brand new website contained extra data in order that it was updating extra slowly than the previous one. Also, they stated, the previous website erroneously counted some deficiencies greater than as soon as.
People looking the brand new web site will discover no hyperlinks subsequent to particular person nursing properties for citations made earlier than 2016 – these hyperlinks are nonetheless there however, in accordance with the affected person advocates, buried on the brand new website.
So, the advocates say, a person contemplating Oakpark Healthcare Center in Tujunga, for instance, could miss the intense Class AA quotation from September 2015 that was extra readily evident on the previous web site. That quotation decided that the nursing dwelling did not determine and deal with a gangrenous wound on a resident’s heel, resulting in her loss of life.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nationwide well being coverage information service. It is an editorially unbiased program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which isn’t affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.