YOU’RE INVITED….
NEXT GENERAL MEETING SUNDAY JULY 22
Get involved in nursing home reform. Attend the next general meeting of
Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform. It will be on Sunday July 22 at the
Tates Creek Branch of the Lexington public library. The time: 2 p.m. (Click
here for a map to this location). Come and hear an update on
what your organization is doing on nursing home reform. Find out how you
can help in the upcoming regular session of the Kentucky General
Assembly in January. Volunteer to help on KFNHR programs like “Posters
to the People.” Ask questions. Offer suggestions. Everyone is welcome.
MOVE ‘EM OUT
In the second round of funding, the feds gave Kentucky money to shift
Medicaid recipients out of institutional care and into their own homes
and communities. Kentucky’s share of the federal grant is $49.8 million
– the fourth largest amount of 13 states. A number of people in the
state Cabinet for Health and Family Services worked hard to obtain this
grant. “States will benefit by giving the elderly and people with
disabilities more control over how and where they receive the Medicaid
services they need,” said Leslie Norwalk, acting administrator of the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The grant is spread over
five years. The first year amount is larger to take good care of
individuals moving out of nursing homes and other institutional settings
into the community. “The state must continue to provide community
services after that period as long as the person needs community
services and is eligible for Medicaid,” a fed news release said.
Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform will have a representative on the
new steering committee for the program. We will represent our members’
interests and keep you posted on developments.
MORE OMBUDSMEN?
State officials say they are going after still another grant from the
feds to fund a volunteer recruitment program. The program will look for
more volunteers across the state to go into nursing homes either as a
“friendly visitor” or – with specialized training – as a certified
ombudsman. The state hopes to get a million dollars from the feds to
support the effort. If you are interested in being a part of this new
program, contact Sandra Brock or Jacqueline Strader in the Cabinet for
Health and Family Services. They are the women who head the statewide
nursing home ombudsman program now. You can call them toll free at
1-800-372-2991.
CHANGES IN OIG
When you call the state Office of Inspector General, as many of you do,
you will discover these new titles and people:
Steven D. Davis was named Inspector General after having served as
interim director after Robert Benvenuti III left the job. Mr. Davis is a
lawyer and has three degrees from the University of Louisville. He has
been in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services for more than 10
years and before that had his own healthcare law practice in Louisville.
Mike Lawrence has been named Deputy Inspector General. He retired a
couple years ago when he was cabinet special investigator, but now has
come back in the No. 2 spot.
Ed Wilson was named senior adviser to the Inspector General on an
interim basis; and,
Sandra Houchen was named clinical issues adviser.
EXCELLENCE, WHERE ART THOU?
Just all of a sudden, it seems, the nursing home industry has gotten
interested in quality. They’ve started a national campaign, called
“Advancing Excellence,” and the industry has persuaded even some nursing
home ombudsmen to participate. In Kentucky, however, only about 1/3 of
the nursing homes are taking part. It may surprise some to find that the
national nursing home advocacy group, NCCNHR, is participating in this
effort, mainly, we suspect, to keep a close eye on what the industry
claims and what it actually does to improve quality…….
Then there is an organization in Kentucky you rarely hear about called
“Health Care Excel.” It works with physicians, hospitals and nursing
homes to improve care, but the last time we checked only 15 nursing
homes in Kentucky were participating. Our attempt more than a week ago
to make contact with Health Care Excel was not answered. In the
meantime, this QIO (for Quality Improvement Organization) – as they are
called nationally – is spending hundreds of thousands of your taxpayer
dollars. Just recently the Government Accountability Office took another
look at QIOs and noted that they go to the nursing homes with only a few
deficiencies to do their training and skip the ones with lots of
problems and deficiencies; and we have noted that they never give a
report on what they have accomplished, or did not……
Then there’s a joint venture of Commonwealth Attorney Ray Larson in
Lexington and the Lexington area nursing home ombudsman agency. Mr.
Larson said they are working on quality improvement with Kindred
Healthcare, the big Louisville-based nursing home corporation. Mr.
Larson also says he thinks the project is unique in the nation. We have
not heard the results of this one either…....
And then there’s the new State Long-Term Care Ombudsman in Kentucky who
is getting ready to launch two quality improvement programs statewide –
one is to help facilities work on the worst problems like bed sores, and
the other is to change the “culture” of nursing homes.
Good? Sure all this quality stuff is great. But we have not seen one
concrete result yet except a public relations stunt by the industry of
hiring a survey firm to find people in nursing homes whom they record as
saying the care is wonderful.
Do you believe that? Maybe the results from all this quality work will
be more credible.
Our lament: “Excellence, Where Art Thou?
UNIONS BEAR WATCHING
With the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) testing the waters
in Kentucky for organizing assisted living workers, the rift between
SEIU and United Health Workers (UHW) in California bears watching. There
was a good bit of controversy out there over charges that SEIU was
collaborating with the owners of nursing homes. One charge was that SEIU
was barred from waging an aggressive public campaign to address
staff-to-patient ratios. That caused the head of California Advocates
for Nursing Home Reform to be quoted as saying, “They’re (UHW) up
against a powerful national union (SEIU) whose philosophy is corporate
collaboration and to get new members at any cost.” Because of such
criticism, however, SEIU says it will back off its collaborative
agreements with the nursing home industry. Also, SEIU has just announced
its new spin-off, SEIU Healthcare, with a goal to recruit a million
members including about 160,000 nursing home workers. At the present
time in Kentucky most of the SEIU effort seems to be concentrated on
organizing workers in assisted living facilities. In fact, the union
will announce next week the results of an investigation it did of the
Atria Senior Living Group which has assisted living companies in 121
communities across the nation, including six in Kentucky. Atria is
headquartered in Louisville. The report will conclude that Atria needs
to hire more staff in its facilities.
WILL ASSISTED LIVING BE REGULATED?
All the fuss that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is
making over assisted living facilities is strangely coincidental to the
fact that Kentucky is right now preparing new regulations for this type
of long-term care. The information that SEIU will release in its report
next week sounds just like the complaints heard for years about nursing
homes – most of it having to do with inadequate staffing. What a coup
Kentucky could make by putting minimum staffing standards for assisted
living facilities in the new state regulations which will be released
soon. Don’t hold your breath though because the assisted living industry
has almost as much money and lobbyists in Frankfort as their friends in
the nursing home industry.
BEN CHANDLER AT WORK
Sixth District Kentucky Congressman Ben Chandler has introduced a bill
in the House (H.R. 2105) that would require states to enact laws
prohibiting parole of anyone convicted of a criminal sexual offense
against an elderly person. The bill awaits action in the House judiciary
committee. There is only one co-sponsor of the bill so far, Congressman
Gene Green of Texas, and no co-sponsors from the Kentucky delegation in
Congress. Some states already have enacted laws to notify administrators
when a convicted sexual offender is sent to live in a nursing home, but
not Kentucky yet. You can urge your Congressional representative in
Congress to co-sponsor Mr. Chandler’s bill by
clicking here.
CAN OL’ TOM BEAT ‘EM TO IT?
Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, introduced a bill last year on drug
testing for workers in nursing homes and state-run long-term care mental
health facilities. He was urged to amend his legislation, HB 151, to
also mandate criminal background checks on ALL workers in nursing homes
-- only direct care workers are covered now. The bill was assigned to
Rep. Burch’s committee, health and welfare, but he never called it out
for discussion and a vote, which puzzled some observers. Now comes Sen.
Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin, who has introduced a criminal background check
bill in the Senate. Nothing on drug testing in the Kohl bill and no
telling if or when the Kohl measure will be considered by the Congress
But in the meantime, advocates for nursing home reform will ask Rep.
Burch to reintroduce HB 151 in the 2008 session in January and ask him
to be sure it covers all nursing home workers and include random drug
testing. Maybe ol’ Tom can beat the big boys in Washington and put
Kentucky out front. And, oh yes…… Kentucky’s two senators, Mitch
McConnell and Jim Bunning are not co-sponsors of the Kohl bill, S. 1577,
the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act. Call them now and urge them
to co-sponsor the bill. Call their Washington offices at Bunning: (202)
224-4343 and McConnell: (202) 224-2541 And if you see Rep. Burch around
Frankfort or Louisville, let him know you support his bill for 2008.
SHORT STUFF….
• Wouldn’t you know? The largest number of complaints nursing home
ombudsmen across the state get is unanswered call lights and requests
for assistance. That’s the number that jumps out of the annual report
from the state long-term care ombudsman office released to us recently.
There were a total of 5,723 complaints for the entire state fiscal year
ended last July 2006, the most up-to-date figures available. Other top
complaints were about personal hygiene, accidents and improper handling,
and the quantity, quality and choices of food being served by the
nursing homes. OUR CONCLUSION: A worn-out criticism – nursing homes need
more and better staff, and better cooks.
• The booklet for nursing home residents and their families that the
staff of Attorney General Greg Stumbo produced is becoming a “best
seller” across the state, thanks in part to the work of UK Cooperative
Extension Service Specialist Bob Flashman. The free booklet, “How to
Protect Nursing Home Residents – A Guide for Taking Action Against Abuse
and Neglect,” was the idea of Lois Pemble of Lexington, a member of the
Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform board of directors. Mr. Flashman has
stepped in to get copies out to all the county agent offices in the
state and enlisted the aid of the Kentucky Homemakers Association to get
it distributed further. You can see a copy right now just by going to
our Web site. Click here.
• The advisory council program for the Pennyrile area nursing home
ombudsman program just got a big write-up in one of their local
newspapers, giving the district ombudsman there, Randa Ramsey, a chance
to extol council members hard work and to say that the main complaint
they get is about staffing.
• Another newspaper, the Arizona Republic, has done a big spread on
assisted living facilities in that state and observed that health
officials in Arizona are concerned that these facilities may be caring
for residents whose needs they cannot meet. Sounds familiar.
• The Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency of the Bluegrass won another award
recently, one of only 10 nationally from the Met Life Foundation/Civic
Ventures Breakthrough Awards.
• Ventas, the Louisville real estate holding company started by Bruce
Lunsford of Louisville, who recently lost his second try for governor,
has sold 21 of its nursing homes and one hospital to Kindred Healthcare,
the spin-off of Ventas, for $171.5 billion.
• And if you believe the nursing home industry when it gives the poor
mouth, you might change your mind when you see headlines like this:
“Carlyle Group to take Manor Care, Inc., private for $6.3 BILLION! Manor
Care is said to be the largest long-term care corporation in the
country. Sounds like they are doing pretty well as are most nursing home
corporations.
GOOD STUFF TO DO NOW….
Go to our Web site by
clicking here.
On the front page of the Web site, do two things:
1. Order your free copy of “How to Protect Nursing Home Residents” -- or
print it right there from our Web site. It’s a terrific little
booklet produced by the office of Attorney General Greg Stumbo. Every
member of a nursing home Family Council ought to have one of these.
2. Sign the petition that Frank Losey, one of
our members from Northern Kentucky, is circulating to urge Kentucky
lawmakers to increase the bed hold time from the current 14 days. He
needs your support right away.
BACK TO NATURE
There is a real treat for you on our Web site, click here. Take a look
at the special link, “Gallery: Relax With the
Wonders of Nature.” It is toward the bottom on the left side of the
main page. You will see spectacular close-up photography of flora and
fauna, all captured by the camera lens of one of our most valuable
members, Janet Powell of Lexington. Janet also is our volunteer Web
Master, and we asked her to share her spectacular nature photography
with our members. So sit back, click, and enjoy nature.
MEMORIALIZE YOUR LOVED ONES
KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM is now officially a non-profit
organization. That means, for one thing, that any donations to the
organization are tax deductible by the donor. With that in mind, we
offer for your consideration the thought that memorials at the time of
death of a loved one or friend could be in the form of memorial
donations to KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM, 1530 Nicholasville
Road, Lexington, KY 40503.
NEWS NOTES….
We get tons of information in here that affect nursing home reform. We
want to share this information with those of you who are interested, but
rather than putting it all in our newsletter we will post it regularly
on our Web site.
Go there now and see what we mean.
P.S.
SENIOR BREAKFAST
We went to breakfast at a restaurant where the "seniors' special" was
two eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast for $1.99.
"Sounds good," my wife said. "But I don't want the eggs."
Then I'll have to charge you two dollars and forty-nine cents because
you're ordering a la carte," the waitress warned her.
"You mean I'd have to pay for not taking the eggs?" My wife asked
incredulously.
"YES!!"
"I'll take the special."
"How do you want your eggs?"
"Raw and in the shell," my wife replied.
She took the two eggs home.
DON'T MESS WITH SENIORS... WE'VE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME.
THAT’S
IT FOR THIS TIME, BUT DON’T FORGET...
MORE THAN 23,000 PEOPLE IN NURSING
HOMES IN KENTUCKY NEED US. THEY ARE KENTUCKY’S “FORGOTTEN PEOPLE.”
BERNIE VONDERHEIDE
KENTUCKIANS FOR NURSING HOME REFORM
E-mail:
KyNursingHomeReform@yahoo.com
Web Site:
http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org
Telephone: (859) 312-5617
