What does a nursing home administrator do?
Every nursing home must have an administrator licensed by the State of Illinois, and according to federal regulations, is in charge of the management of the nursing home.
To many, it sounds like the administrator is in charge of overseeing the care that is delivered to the residents of the nursing home. Actually, our experience has been that most administrators don’t have a background in the actual delivery of health care services – they have never worked to make patients better. Rather their background is in business or management.
When we take depositions of nursing home administrators, we often find that they will not answer questions about the quality of care that was delivered, saying that they are “not qualified.” Instead, they will say that they rely on the director of nursing to make determinations regarding the quality of care and that they spend their time handling financial issues, human resources, and other tasks that are not directly related to the delivery of care.
It is shocking to hear that the person in charge of managing a business is “not qualified” to answer questions about the service they provide, but that is often the case. When it comes to making the nursing home account for the quality of care provided, we often find that directing questions to the nursing staff administration and floor staff is more productive.