In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by
ProPublica, the government has released unredacted write-ups
of problems found during nursing home inspections around the country. We’re
making them available today for anyone who wants to download the complete
versions.
For several months now, ProPublica has made redacted versions
of this same information available in an easily searchable format in our Nursing Home Inspect
tool. These versions, which reside on the U.S. Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services website, Nursing
Home Compare, sometimes blank out patients’ ages, medical conditions, dates
and prescribed medications.
The agency has said the redactions are intended to balance patient
privacy concerns with the need to inform consumers about the quality of care. ProPublica
requested the unredacted reports because they are
public records and because the added information can make them more useful.
For example, prescription information in the unredacted write-ups can help identify cases in which patients
received medications such as antipsychotics that are dangerous for those with dementia.
Patients and employees are not identified in either the
redacted or unredacted reports.
Nursing
Home Inspect allows patients and their families to quickly find nursing
homes in their states and identify those with serious deficiencies and
penalties in the last three years. The entire national collection of reports —
listing more than 267,000 deficiencies — is searchable by keyword.
At this point, Nursing Home Inspect continues to link to only
the redacted inspection reports. To search through the unredacted
versions, you’ll have to download them and use a program like Microsoft Excel
or a text editor that enables you to hunt for keywords or phrases.
The unredacted reports are grouped by CMS region and can be downloaded here. A list of states in each of the 10 regions is here.
