Testimony -- Moving to a Higher Level: How Collaboration and Cooperation Can Improve Nursing Home Quality

M. J. Koren, Moving to a Higher Level: How Collaboration and Cooperation Can Improve Nursing Home Quality, Invited Testimony, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, "In the Hands of Strangers: Are Nursing Homes Safeguards Working?," Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this invitation to testify today. I am Dr. Mary Jane Koren, a geriatrician by training, and I've been involved with nursing homes for over 25 years. I've taken care of nursing home residents, taught medical students and geriatric fellows in nursing homes, and done research on nursing home quality. In addition, I was the director of New York State's Bureau of Long-Term Care, which oversaw the survey and certification process for New York's over 600 nursing homes, pilot-tested a new federal survey process for HCFA [now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services], and implemented the Nursing Home Reform Law, OBRA'87, in New York. More recently—only last year—I sat by my father's beside in a nursing home during his final months.