Nursing homes facing an increased risk of local wildfires in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest regions had deficiencies in emergency preparedness, while reinspection for these facilities also lagged.
This is according to a new study published on Monday in JAMA Network Open.
The study evaluated whether nursing homes that are at elevated risk of wildfire exposure meet the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) emergency preparedness standards. It also compared the time to reinspection of a facility by exposure status.
The findings suggest that while compliance to regulatory measures was “poorer” for those nursing homes exposed to risk of wildfires compared to their unexposed counterparts, the regulatory oversight itself could use improvement.
“It is uncertain whether emergency preparedness and regulatory oversight for U.S. nursing homes are aligned with local wildfire risk,” researchers concluded, adding, “there may be opportunities to improve the responsiveness of nursing homes to and regulatory oversight of surrounding wildfire risk.”
The JAMA study showed that in the cross-sectional sample of 2,218 nursing homes in the Western United States, there was variation across the region in emergency preparedness for wildfire episodes. Of these, about 1,219, or 55.0%, were exposed to elevated wildfire risk.
Moreover, facilities with a higher risk to exposure to wildfires also tended to have poorer compliance with emergency preparedness criteria than unexposed facilities, researchers said. Of the noncompliant facilities, exposed nursing homes in the Mountain West were noted for incurring longer times to reinspection than their unexposed counterparts. Researchers also noted that on average, these exposed Mountain West facilities with deficiencies were reinspected later by 91.2 days than unexposed facilities.
Meanwhile, the Pacific Southwest had the highest percentage of facilities with one or more deficiencies as well as the greatest mean number of deficiencies at 4.3.
The study used data from January 1, 2017, through December 31, 2019, using cross-sectional and survival analyses, and data analysis was performed from October 10 to December 12, 2022. Meanwhile, critical emergency preparedness deficiencies cited during CMS Life Safety Code Inspections were also examined.
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