Study: Hispanic nursing homes provide lower quality of care
April 22nd, 2009 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
Nursing homes that serve primarily Hispanic residents provide a lower quality of care compared to nursing homes that cater to a mostly white clientele, according to a Brown University study. The research, which was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, looked at the rate of bedsores at nursing homes in select states and found that residents in nursing homes with a larger concentration of Hispanic residents reported having more bedsores than nursing homes with lower concentrations of Hispanic residents.
Bedsores, also known as pressure ulcers, are often caused by unrelieved pressure to any part of the body. Though easily prevented by turning a patient every two hours, if left untreated, bedsores can be fatal.
Researchers pulled from two data sources – the national repository of the Minimum Data Set, a federally mandated report of health status, function and demographics on all nursing home residents; and the Oscar database system, which collects information on patients and nursing homes through the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. The research included nursing home residents who were 65 years old and older and living in nursing homes in California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona or Colorado.
The study was led by Michael Gerardo, adjunct assistant professor of community health at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Co-authors included Joan Teno, M.D., professor of community health and medicine and end-of-life care expert, and Vincent Mor, chairman of the Department of Community Health. Mor also served as lead author for a 2007 study that suggested blacks were more likely to live in poor-quality nursing homes than whites.
The researchers concluded that more research was needed to determine the implications of their findings.
Source: Brown University