Nursing home revenue source and information availability during the emergency department evaluation of nursing home residents.

OBJECTIVES Lack of access to medical information for nursing home residents during emergency department (ED) evaluation is a barrier to quality care. We hypothesized that the quantity of information available in the ED differs based on the funding source of the resident's nursing home. DESIGN Cross-sectional observational study. SETTING Single academic ED. PARTICIPANTS Participants were 128 skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents age 65 or older from 12 SNFs. MEASUREMENTS Emergency physicians documented knowledge of 9 essential information items. SNFs were categorized as accepting or not accepting Medicaid. RESULTS Questionnaires were completed for 128 patients, of whom 95 (74%) were from 1 of 8 Medicaid-funded SNFs and 33 (26%) were from 1 of 4 SNFs not accepting Medicaid. Patients from SNFs accepting Medicaid were younger (79 versus 87, P < .001) and less frequently white (62% versus 97%, P < .001). The mean number of 9 possible information items available was lower for patients from SNFs that accept Medicaid (7.13 versus 8.15, P < .001). Emergency providers also reported lower satisfaction regarding access to information for residents from SNFs that accept Medicaid (P < .05). The association between residence in an SNF that accepts Medicaid and lower ED information scores remained after linear regression with clustering by SNF controlling for age, gender, and race. The most common source of information for residents from both types of SNFs was transfer papers from the SNF. CONCLUSION Less information is available to ED providers for patients from SNFs that accept Medicaid than for residents from SNFs that do not accept Medicaid. Further study is needed to examine this information gap.