December 6, 2007
THREE NURSING HOMES IN KENTUCKY ADDED
TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S ‘BAD’ LIST
Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform has learned that three
nursing homes in Kentucky have been added to a list of 54 other nursing
homes in the U.S., released recently by the federal government as
facilities with a “history of noncompliance with quality of care and
safety requirements….”
There were no nursing homes in Kentucky on the “Special Focus Facility”
list released last week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services in Washington. But today, Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform
learned that there are three in Kentucky which were not on the original
list, and they are:
●
Cambridge Place, Lexington
●
Highlands Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Louisville
● Baptist
Convalescent Center, Newport
Advocates for nursing home reform across the nation have wondered why
the first list released left off nursing homes. In the first release,
CMS listed no nursing homes in Kentucky on the list of 54. But now it
appears that the names of some 74 other nursing homes were not released
to the public.
An official at the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services said the
reason that some were released first is that all the facilities cited
were separated out by what stage of improvement they were in.
Neither federal nor state officials have released names of additional
nursing homes. Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform obtained the names of
the three nursing homes in Kentucky from other sources.
“The consumer has a right to know about all facilities that are
sanctioned and that enforcement needs to be consistent and strong,” said
Alice Hedt, president of the National Citizens’ Council for Nursing Home
Reform in Washington.
Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform, a non-profit organization dedicated
to improving the quality of care in nursing homes, has released the
names of the facilities to the media as a “public service.”
‘BEE LINES’
(This is a new part of our newsletter by Bee Becker.
Ms. Becker is a salty, saucy, satiric advocate for nursing home reform
from Indiana. She often share news stories pertaining to nursing home
reform and adds her own commentary, like here.)
CMS Tries To Replicate Success of Nursing Home Pressure Ulcer Project
October 26 2007
Federal regulators
are appealing to providers to use free materials that helped slash the
onset of pressure ulcers by 70 percent in a recent skilled nursing test
project.
The results of the project, if they can be replicated on a wider scale,
could have profound effects on providers nationwide. Thirty-five of 52
facilities worked on process improvements and submitted information for
the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services study.
"This project showed clinicians and managers that major improvement is
possible," said Barry M. Straube, MD, chief medical officer for CMS, and
director of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality.
Improvement materials used in the project are available for free at
www.medqic.org - under the "Nursing
Home" tab. Results of the project are also detailed in the current
edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Among
other findings, researchers wrote that nursing aides and other
direct-care workers could be very effective leaders of quality
improvement efforts.
"This is a remarkable gain in a large number of facilities, against a
condition that is as devastating and costly as it has been resistant to
improvement," Acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems said.
BEE’S COMMENT: “Uhhh, you forgot one important
factor, Weems - NONE OF THIS WILL WORK IF THERE AREN'T ENOUGH CAREGIVERS
TO CARRY THIS OUT on a daily basis!!!”
SHORT STUFF
● Far be
it for us to pick on a guy when he is down, but Lexington Herald-Leader
columnist Larry Dale Keeling reports that all the bragging Gov. Ernie
Fletcher did on how his administration saved the Medicaid program in
Kentucky is not holding up as fact. In fact, the governor went all over
the country telling how he and his boys had cut Kentucky’s Medicaid
deficit. Now, reports Mr. Keeling, it comes to pass that “the Medicaid
program needs another $112 million in state money to leverage federal
matching funds and fill a $389 million shortfall in the current budget
year.”
● This
passed on to us from one of our staunchest advocates:
Florida State Rep. Stephen Wise has repeatedly voted against medical
malpractice and nursing home reform. In 2004 he issued this statement:
"The Legislature must not allow nursing homes to be put out of business
because of lack of insurance and the possibility of law actions that
have no merit.” Last week his wife filed a lawsuit against a
Jacksonville nursing home on behalf of her deceased 89-year old father.
● A
nursing home abuse bill, the Elder Justice Act, has been languishing in
the Congress for five years now. Political pros say it is not what’s in
the bill but a pokey Congress that has its mind on the war and
presidential politics. Kentucky struggled to pass an elder abuse law,
too, but has one now thanks to hard work in the 2006 session by Rep.
Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown. He managed to get it through partisan
opposition and get a consensus to pass it. Rep. Lee says it is now a
“tremendous help” in getting people like law enforcement officials and
social workers trained to recognize the problem and work with the
courts. He said, however, that he had no information on whether it has
cut down on abuse in nursing homes.
● One of
the saddest sights in nursing homes is an elderly and frail person
slumped over in their wheelchair. Usually it’s because the nursing home
has put them on an antipsychotic drug to quiet symptoms of Alzheimer’s
disease and other forms of dementia. This is a practice that ought to be
outlawed, but which also could be taken care of by minimum staffing
standards. Here’s what we guess the nursing homes say -- “ If you knock
a person out, you don’t need aides to tend to them… which saves us money
on staffing.” Read more about this terrible practice on our Web site –
front page under “News Notes.” Click here.
● Rumors
are flying around Frankfort that Joyce Hagen of Louisville is going to
be Gov.-elect Steve Beshear’s choice for Secretary of the Cabinet for
Health and Family Services. Apparently salary negotiations are holding
things up, according to our good friend Mark Hebert of WHAS-TV in
Louisville. We also have heard that Shannon Turner who was state
Medicaid director before she left for a job in Louisville is also being
recruited as deputy secretary. By the time you read this, however, we
may all know.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Our most sincere thanks to all of you for helping us in the past year
advance the cause of nursing home reform. We would like to list all of
the many agencies, organizations and individuals who have worked hard on
a variety of projects. But at our age, we most certainly would forget
someone. You know who you are, and so please accept our “thanks.”
All of us have one goal in mind: Ease the plight of the 23,000
“Forgotten Kentuckians” in nursing homes.
And if you get a chance this Christmas Season, drop by a nursing home
and wish the residents Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Some of these
people never have a regular visitor, so you will look like an angel from
Heaven to them.
WHAT ABOUT 2008?
On the political front, we extend our Christmas wishes to the new
administration in Frankfort and especially Steve Beshear, our new
governor. We are excited that they want to help us enact minimum
staffing standards in nursing homes and have pledged to work with us on
this and other issues.
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 some of it
regularly on our Web site:
http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org
Go there now and see what we mean.
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
P.S.
Last night my wife and I were sitting in the den and I said to her, “I
never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and
fluids from a bottle to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life
at all... if that ever happens, just pull the plug.” So she got up,
unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.
-- From our good friend, ombudsman Kathy Gannoe,
Lexington
