Posted on: Tuesday, August 10, 2004

EDITORIAL
New care-home policy is a success

A new state policy that encourages unannounced inspections of adult care homes appears to be working better than almost anyone had anticipated.

As reported by staff writer Mike Gordon, the new "spot" inspection system is going smoothly, with general approval from inspectors, home operators and the clients themselves.

Given the generally positive reception this program has received, one wonders why it took so much political struggle to put it into action.

Care-home operators initially opposed the idea, arguing it would produce a system of "fault finders" who were more interested in citing operators than anything else.

So far, inspectors have looked at approximately 132 care homes. Most of those facilities received no citation at all, and the rest were cited for relatively minor infractions.

Now, it may be true that the fact of unannounced inspections may have motivated some operators to do a better job of ensuring their facility was in order.

If so, then the new process is working. And care-home operators are learning that those who show up are not on a witch-hunt, but rather are there to help the operators do the best job possible for the elderly folks in their care.