In September, the Senate Year 2000 committee advised relatives to check nursing homes where loved ones reside for preparedness. We are unfamiliar with any public surveys or studies depicting how nursing homes will cope with potential serious disruption of their normal activities due to Y2K problems,'' the panel said. If Congress is nervous, it's because of testimony by officials such as Kevin Thurm, deputy secretary of health and human services. We are concerned that some providers will not fully meet the Year 2000 challenge on time,'' he told the Senate panel in June. The uncertainty about medical preparations for Year 2000 difficulties might be more of a communications problem than a computer one.
Many practitioners say the fixes have been made, but nobody is collecting that information.
Managers at the Central Ohio Dialysis Center, for example, say state Health Department examiners visiting the facility this fall for a comprehensive license-renewal inspection never asked about Year 2000 preparations. Inspectors are supposed to ask about emergency contingency plans during routine inspections, department spokesman Randall Hertzer said, but aren't checking dialysis centers, hospitals or nursing homes for Y2K preparedness. Still, there should be no cause for concern, said Nithya Lingham, an area administrator for Fresenius Medical Care of Lexington, Mass., which operates eight dialysis centers in central Ohio. Ninety patients who take dialysis treatments at home each day use manually operated equipment that doesn't require computers or electricity, said Joanie Steele, home-program coordinator. Nursing homes always have to be ready to deal with emergencies so Year 2000 preparations are nothing new, said Robert Banasik, past president of the Ohio Academy of Nursing Homes and president of Omnilife Systems, which operates four homes in central Ohio.