Governor DeWine launches Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force

Statement

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine today signed an Executive Order 2023-06D, officially creating the Ohio Governor's Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force.

During his 2023 State of the State Address, Governor DeWine announced his plan to form the task force to study issues surrounding quality of life and quality of care in Ohio's nursing homes. The Governor also announced during his address that the group would be tasked with completing their work on an expedited timeline. In keeping with this directive, the task force will travel to communities across the state between now and May to hear directly from nursing home residents and their loved ones about their experiences and issue a report of their findings.

"I promised that this task force would move quickly because we can't afford to wait," Governor DeWine said. "While many of our state's nursing homes are very good, others are not meeting the standards we expect for those caring for our older loved ones. All too often -- we hear of preventable tragedies occurring: medication errors, failure to provide care, poor infection prevention and control, and sometimes even elder abuse."

Ohio ranked 39th in the most recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services overall Quality Star Ratings, which scores all Medicare/Medicaid-funded nursing facilities between 1 (much below average) and 5 (much above average) stars on a variety of categories, including overall quality. Ohio's average overall nursing home quality currently ranks in the bottom quartile of all states.

Additionally, many of the state's nursing facilities are inconsistent in their compliance with standards of care, being forced to correct the same deficiencies repeatedly.

"This is not acceptable in Ohio," Governor DeWine added. "We need to take action."

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