Carlyle Group has put in writing that it will not cut back on resources and staffing with the Manor Care buyout.

The Carlyle Group, under siege for weeks by a labor union critical of its $6.3 billion purchase of Manor Care nursing homes, has taken the rare step of putting in writing its promise to provide adequate staffing and resources to the chain.

The District-based buyout giant said it has sent to state regulators across the nation a “patients first” pledge, vowing to provide quality services to patients and proper education and training to staffers who care for them. The private-equity firm also said it will make the investments necessary to “ensure Manor Care’s facilities continue to be . . . state of the art.”

The pledge comes in the wake of concerns over whether the private-equity firm might cut staffing and reduce patient care in pursuit of financial goals.

“We are confident, because we have been doing this for 20 years, that we can provide quality products and services to people that is completely compatible with providing a return to investors,” said Karen H. Bechtel, Carlyle managing director and head of its health care team.

Health-care experts differed on the value of Carlyle’s pledge.

David A. Goldstein, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, said he considered Carlyle’s pledge “relatively meaningless.” He added, “For-profit companies should not be in the business of health care. Their allegiance is not to patients. It’s to their stockholders.”

But Joseph C. d’Oronzio, associate professor of health policy at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, called the pledge “a positive and good gesture.” He added that “Carlyle won’t be able to run a nursing home and get Medicaid and insurance funding without toeing that line and answering to state regulators.”

We’ll see. Written words mean little when the excuses start coming in. Census numbers and levels of acuity will be used- just watch. And let’s keep an eye on the profit margins too.

Why it’s so important to maintain professional relationships with residents.

OLYMPIA — A 20-year-old woman has lost her nursing assistant’s license after being accused of accepting $145,000 in gifts — including jewelry, a car, a stock portfolio and a trip to Disneyland — from an elderly man before he died at an Olympia assisted-living facility in 2006.

Lila Guzman collected the gifts from Damiano Buffone from 2004 to 2006, starting when she was 18 and Buffone was a resident of Merrill Gardens on Lilly Road, according court records and a statement of administrative charges filed by the state Department of Health against Guzman this year.
[...]
According to the civil suit filed by Buffone’s daughter:

“Over a period of time from November, 2004 to May, 2006, defendant received approximately $145,000 from the decedent in the form of checks. Additionally, shares of stock managed by Merrill Lynch was transferred to the defendant.”

The suit alleges that before Buffone’s death June 6, 2006, Guzman “coerced” him into giving her stock and money while she worked at Merrill Gardens. Horn’s attorneys were able to freeze Guzman’s stock holdings, as well as at least one of her bank accounts, after Buffone’s death, the complaint states.

Now, Guzman is broke, unable to pay the money she has been ordered to give Horn as part of the judgment, Benjamin said.

“She has no money because all of her assets were frozen and taken away,” he said.

More Congressional fallout for the private equity buyouts of nursing homes.

Private equity firms have been rapidly buying up nursing homes in the last few years, sometimes using complex ownership structures to shield them from lawsuits. Now they have attracted attention in Washington.

Two members of the United States Senate on Thursday asked the federal agency that oversees nursing home inspections to account for what The New York Times described in September as an increase in health and safety violations at nursing homes bought by private investors. The lawmakers, Max Baucus of Montana of Chuck Grassley of Iowa, also sent letters to private equity firms, including the Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus, seeking information about their nursing home investments.

Mr. Baucus, a Democrat, and Mr. Grassley, a Republican, are the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Finance Committee. They have already squared off with some of the biggest players in the private equity industry. Earlier this year, they proposed a bill that would more than double the tax rate on publicly traded investment firms such as the Blackstone Group and the Fortress Investment Group. Such a measure would also likely apply to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts if it goes through with its plan to go public.

On Thursday, the two lawmakers turned their attention to private equity’s role in the nursing home industry. Most nursing home fees are paid by Medicaid and Medicare, two programs overseen by the Senate Finance Committee.

In a press release, Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley expressed concern about the findings in the report, by The Times’ Charles Duhigg, that after nursing homes were acquired by buyout firms, their residents were generally worse off than under the previous owners.

“Nursing homes aren’t just investment vehicles,” Mr. Baucus said in a statement. “They’re homes for some of America’s most vulnerable citizens.”

Let’s hope this attention from Congress scares off some of these unethical groups. Sometimes though, these investigations and hearings only serve to create more unscrupulous investing deals- the bad guys learn how to hide themselves even more. We will stay on top of this.

This is fraud.

Some Cuyahoga County nursing homes have become warehouses for the homeless and mentally ill, using millions of taxpayer dollars to house patients who often don’t qualify for the care. Medicaid pays nursing homes to take in hundreds of Cuyahoga patients discharged every year from hospital psychiatric wards. The mentally ill are eligible for admission to nursing homes only if they need 24-hour supervision or hands-on assistance. But 60 percent of the psychiatric patients admitted into Cuyahoga nursing homes, most on Medicaid’s dime, don’t need the care, the state found.

Read the entire article, which is 5 pages long. Ohio needs to figure out where to place their homeless and mentally ill citizens AND keep the elderly and frail safe. It appears as though the nursing home industry is taking advantage of these people and placing the others at risk.

We’ve added some new links that we think are pertinent to the work of the CNA.

State Boards of Nursing

Nutritional Guidelines for Older Adults

Everything You Need To Know About HIPPA

All About The MSDS

Most people know October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Check this site for what other months, weeks and days are marked for medical issues and causes.
Health Care Recognition Calendar

This site has a lot of links to cultural differences and nursing care, diversity and the like.
Multicultural Health Clearinghouse

A reminder as to why it’s SO important to wash your hands:

LONDON (AP) - Nurses who didn’t wash their hands and left patients lying in soiled beds were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England.

“Significant failings” at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.

The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.

“The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

The report into the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.

Across the pond they’re having HUGE problems battling these germs and bugs. It sounds like hand washing isn’t on top of the things nursing staff do over there.

Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly- AKA PACE- has set up services in the state of Virginia. This is very good news.

Kirby Turner uses a walker to get around, but that didn’t stop him from doing a spirited dance to celebrate his 66th birthday recently.

Turner, who also has a mental disability, might have ended up in a nursing home, away from family and friends. But he’s able to live with his nephew, thanks to a day center that provides him with transportation, home care, meals, doctor visits, and yes, even a birthday cake.

The center, called Sentara Senior Community Care, has been around since 1996. Next month, it will become Virginia’s first official site for PACE - Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly.

There are 40 other such sites in the country.

The federal designation will mean expanded services for the 130 people at the day center, and will help Sentara Life Care Corp. launch a second center in the region next year.

The second center could provide as many as 130 more people with an alternative to institutional care.

The PACE model is considered to be the wave of the future, as interest in “aging in place” grows among the elderly and the baby boomers coming behind them.

“Our research shows that 80 to 85 percent of older Virginians want to stay in their homes as long as possible,” said C.D. “Tony” Hylton III, communications director for AARP Virginia, which advocates for people 50 and older.

The participants at PACE centers are frail enough to qualify for nursing home care. But rather than pay for services in institutions, government funds the necessary tools - transportation, health care, home-health aides and recreational activities - to help participants stay at home.

Riverside Health System is awaiting approval for a PACE center to open in Hampton in January. The health system also plans to open a center in Richmond in late 2008. Three sites in the western part of Virginia are in line to become PACE centers next year as well.

The programs are funded by Medicare and Medicaid, government’s two main insurance programs for the elderly, poor and disabled.

There’s lot more to read HERE.

PACE Web Site.