IN 1965, THE OLDER AMERICANS ACT was signed into law. It required each state to have an Ombudsman program. It was also the beginning of Medicare and Medicaid. As public money became available for nursing home care, the industry started to grow with little oversight.
The Ombudsman program was created as an effort by the federal government to address widely reported problems of abuse, neglect, and substandard care in nursing homes nationwide.
Ombudsmen seek resolution to both individual concerns and systemic issues. The Long-Term-Care-Ombudsman Program is unique in the Older Americans Act and Ohio law because it addresses concerns of individual residents, calls upon others to fulfill their responsibilities to residents (like facility staff, the Ohio Department of Health, managed care plans, and others), and gives a public voice to residents’ needs by working for supportive public policy, which could be found in legislative and regulatory changes.
Ombudsmen are client/resident- directed. We work at the direction of our client. A guiding principle for our work is: “Who is my client and what does he/she want?”—not what their adult child, the facility staff, or other medical professionals want.
Empowerment is the process of becoming more confident and gaining more control of one’s life. The Long-Term-Care-Ombudsman program has a responsibility to empower residents to advocate on their own behalf.
The LTCOP takes the following actions to empower residents:
• Educating residents on their rights
• Educating residents on their options
• Discussing all possible outcomes
• Encouraging residents to do something about their concerns, needs, or wishes.
Ombudsmen are impartial in investigation but advocates in resolution. We gather information to find the root cause of a problem. We want to know the facts, and we investigate to gather them. Our main goal is to resolve an issue to the resident’s satisfaction. Ombudsmen use regulations and laws as a beginning point, not an end point. We are not regulators, but we know aspects of the regulations to provide context for our work.
Finally, Ombudsmen have strict confidentiality provisions that are at the foundation of the work we do. Ombudsmen cannot share information without resident consent.
We have two opportunities planned this summer to meet the Ombudsman staff and volunteers. Please join us, to find out more information about our services and volunteer opportunities.
Thursday, July 17, we will be at Riverside City Park, Shelter Nine, in Findlay, Ohio from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, July 23, we will be at Wildwood Park, Whitetail Shelter, in Toledo, Ohio from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public, and light picnic fare will be provided. For more information or to RSVP, please call 419-259-2891.
Lori Davis is an Ombudsman Specialist/Volunteer Coordinator.
