Repeat Offenders: Nursing Homes Watch List
Posted by Patti on July 24th, 2007 / Print This Post
This is a good idea.
Senator Charles Grassley is proposing a new “watch list” for nursing homes that aren’t meeting federal health and safety standards. “That would include nursing homes that yo-yo in and out of compliance by using grace periods to correct deficiencies, but only then on a temporary basis,” Grassley says. “We never seem to get consistency of safety and quality at these nursing homes.”The public would be better able to judge whether a nursing home is the right place for their loves one if a “watch list” disclosed which homes aren’t up to snuff, according to Grassley. “It’s kind of a right to know approach,” Grassley says. Sanctions against nursing homes are often withdrawn before they go into effect because the homes are given time to correct deficiencies, according to Grassley, so the public often never knows of serious health and safety violations.
“The fixes that turn out to be only patches mask permanent problems,” Grassley says. “The whole situation warrants a watch list that would identify the nursing homes that repeatedly fall out of compliance.”
We all know how these places manage to get by with this Plan of Correction bulloney. Everything is made to look good but in the long term, nothing changes. Repeat offenders should be red flagged.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Repeat offenders (LTC’s) should be red flagged. Mine especially. Every year when the state comes and gets us for structural & safety defiecencies, they return a few months later when it is supposedly “In Process”. Soon as the state leave, the work is abondoned and never finished and the residents return to being unsafe. (magical staff appear when the state is here, when the state leaves, magically, so does the staff!) They cited us on housekeeping, online department of health says, “A brown substance was found on the door of a residents room. Upon inspection three days later, the brown substance still remained”. This means housekeeping is not doing their job. How long does C-Diff stay on a surface? It is no wonder it is spreading like wildfire at my place of employment-right along with MRSA & VRE.
Residents fall all the time at my job. Why? Families do not want them restrained, and unfortunately there is never enough staff to watch one person all day. These people have alzhiemers and do not understand “sit down”. Their gait is unsteady, and many of them have wind up with broken hips, fractured skulls, stitches, permenant confusion…I could go on..simply because they cannot be restrained or monitored 24/7.
As far as I am concerned, as long as the patient staff ratio is low, the patient incidents/accidents will be high. If the state stays on the nursing homes about adequate care(implements some kind of regulation mandating higher patient/staff ratios) then LTC’s could perform their jobs adequately and the residents will recieve better care.
It is important for people to know that the LTC is taking good care of the residents. If they were flagged, you would have a pretty good idea what to expect and/or avoid. In PA, if a nursing home is in real hot water they get provisions on their facility. You can see if the nursing home has provisions online at the PA Department of Health. Provisions means they are being “watched” and have major compliance issues to deal with. Basically, they need to shape up or shut down. Information like this is helpful especially for those who need that extra information.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Oh Nicole you hit it all, and hard!! Spot on.
I know of very few nursing/assisted living homes where extra staff are NOT scheduled when the state is in house! It’s a damn slap in everyone’s face too! I was asked to come in on my days off during one survey. I refused. Why? Because I didn’t want to add to this level of deceit. And the maintenance work that suddenly gets started is funny…because it never does get completed now does it?? The Great Deception!
As for infection control and C Diff and others, realize these spores LIVE a long life and when they’re in the rugs and on the floors, your shoes are picking them up. You’re bringing this stuff HOME. I think this is why we see so much more Community Acquired infections.
Falls? Again you hit it right. The day nursing homes staff the units properly will be the day we see less falls. It’s that simple! And even then we will still see falls…it really takes 1:1 supervision with some Alzheimer’s people, sadly. Others, who fall because they are waiting for care, could fall less when more staff are around to tend to their needs.
I think each state has a watch list of some sort. Finding these sites online though can be tricky. I’ll see if I can compile a list.
Thank you for the great comment Nicole.
July 28th, 2007 at 2:09 am
your welcome!:)