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Nursing Homes Underreport Patient Safety Events, Pressure Ulcers

Researchers said the underreporting of patient safety events may adversely impact the Nursing Home Care Compare star ratings that inform consumer care access decisions.

nursing homes underreport patient safety events and pressure ulcers

Source: Getty Images

By Sara Heath

- Nursing homes are vastly underreporting patient safety events, like the occurrence of moderate pressure ulcers, to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a practice that could impact the reliability of publicly reported Nursing Home Care Compare ratings intended to guide consumer care access decisions.

The data, gathered by researchers from the University of Chicago and published in the journal Medical Care, showed that nursing homes only reported 22.4 percent of the pressure ulcers that resulted in hospitalization in which pressure ulcer was the primary diagnosis.

When opening the criteria further, researchers found a starker problem. The investigators looked at hospitalizations with a secondary diagnosis of pressure ulcer and found that 45 percent of those went unreported by nursing homes.