Nursing Home Care Better at Non-Profit Facilities: Report

A new study indicates that the elderly are more likely to receive better nursing home care at a not-for-profit facility than at a home whose goal is to make a profit.

The report, published in the August 4 online edition of the British Medical Journal, looked at 82 observational studies in the United States and Canada between 1965 and 2003. The analysis found that, generally, non-profit facilities provided higher quality nursing home care of elderly patients, with higher staffing, less frequent use of physical restraints, fewer nursing home bedsores and less citations for deficiencies.

Two-thirds of U.S. nursing home facilities are run by for-profit businesses, compared to just over half in Canada. The analysis found that 40 of the studies examined by researchers reported better conditions at the non-profit facilities, while only three concluded that for-profit nursing homes were run better. The rest were inconclusive on the issue.

Non-profits performed markedly better in both staffing quality and prevention of nursing home pressure ulcers, also known as bed sores. They also performed better in the use of physical restraint and received less citations during inspections, but researchers said those numbers were not different enough from the performance of for-profit facilities to be considered statistically significant.

The study substantiates parts of a 2008 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that found that 94% of for-profit nursing homes had been cited by inspectors for deficiencies, compared with only 88% of non-profit nursing homes.

Researchers estimated that nursing home residents in the United States would receive a total of 500,000 more hours of care per day if all of the nation’s nursing homes were run by non-profit agencies. Canadian nursing home residents would see a nationwide increase of 42,000 more hours per day.