Although the agency overseeing inspections of Vermont’s assisted living and residential care facilities has improved, it still has some work to do, according to a new state report. And one senior living advocacy organization is happy to see new efforts to educate providers about quality improvement.
Monday, state Auditor Doug Hoffer released a follow-up report to a 2023 audit criticizing the state’s performance in inspecting long-term care homes.
According to the 2023 report, for seven years, the state Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, known as DAIL, was not performing annual facility inspections of assisted living communities and residential care homes as required, did not have effective systems in place to ensure that safety violations were fixed, and rarely used enforcement tools to address the problems it found.
“Put simply, our audit found that DAIL’s efforts to ensure Vermonters living in assisted living and residential care facilities were safe were not good enough,” Hoffer said in a news release.
In the follow-up report, Hoffer highlighted “notable” improvements, including annual inspections of communities, implementation of a system to inspect all new facilities once residents move in, home reinspections to close all past unfinished reports and statements of deficiencies, and improved communication with facilities.
But the department still has some shortfalls, according to the state. For example, the report noted that DAIL has not begun posting records of enforcement actions on its website.
“While DAIL has more work to do, I am very pleased that they’ve made positive strides,” Hoffer said. “I’m especially glad that they are now performing annual site inspections — those are key to staying on top of the condition of facilities and to making sure that safety issues don’t go undetected for long periods of time.”
The Vermont Health Care Association said that education is key to achieving the quality goals, particularly in a small state such as Vermont, which has a large number of smaller, independent providers that may need extra help understanding the regulatory expectations of them.
“VHCA appreciates the ongoing efforts by DAIL to support the highest quality in Vermont’s assisted living and residential care sector — a goal we fully support,” VHCA Executive Director Helen Labun told McKnight’s Senior Living. “A key component of this work is ongoing provider communication and education. We appreciate the renewed emphasis by DAIL in improving that element of their survey team’s work.”
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