CAUGHT … RED HANDED?

CAUGHT … RED HANDED? — A red-hand “consumer alert icon” intended to warn patients from selecting unsafe facilities on CMS's Nursing Home Compare website could destroy “blame-free environments,” the Society for Post-Acute And Long-Term Care Medicine warned the agency. CMS has been attempting to change the Compare website to provide more transparency to beneficiaries interested in choosing facilities. But nursing homes have been crying foul.

“The red hand does not provide accountability; it is instead a systematic attempt to blame facilities and/or healthcare personnel,” the group wrote in a recent letter to CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “The prominent ‘stop and avoid’ symbol may have the reverse effect of increasing the risk of abuse, as abuse is unlikely in open, healthy work cultures.”