The South Dakota Department of Health has announced that inspection reports for all health care providers in the state are now available online.
This move is aimed at ensuring transparency and helping families make informed decisions about the care of their loved ones, the department stated in an email.
These inspection reports, covering the period from July 2023 onwards, can be found on the state Health Department’s website. The reports include information from various facilities, such as rural clinics, long-term care centers, and hospitals. Excluding nursing home reports, which were already available online, the website featured 114 licensure survey reports earlier this month, with 65 of them highlighting instances of non-compliance.
Justin Hinker, Vice President of Post-Acute Care for the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations, mentioned that by the time non-compliance issues appear on the website, they have usually been addressed and corrected.
The reports cover different types of non-compliance, such as a rural clinic failing to service fire extinguishers annually and having expired vaccines, or a hospice facility not reviewing patients’ medication regimens, which could result in dangerous drug interactions.
Hinker advises residents to use these reports as a helpful resource.
I always encourage people to visit the facilities themselves, he said. These reports are just one tool among many, and they don’t necessarily reflect the overall quality of care.
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