Local lawmakers are touring nursing homes to identify the quality of care and ensure they are receiving adequate reimbursements to accommodate staffing needs. State Representatives say the facilities are understaffed due to low paying jobs for caregivers in part. They want to remedy that.  “I think we can also do things to encourage people to go into the various positions that are in nursing homes and we have some bills right now that will do that,” said a local State Representative.

One state is looking at nursing home abuse and neglect more seriously after reviewing the history of deaths associated with injury and neglect.  Nursing home neglect or injury accounted for 27 deaths since 2008 in one state.  With this review, state legislature is offering more focus on the facilities. The state Department of Public Health (DPH) has been authorized to create 237 new positions for the purpose of addressing complaints and incidents at facilities overseen by the DPH. One …

A nursing home has been fined $2,250 due to poor attempts at infection control.  The facility had multiple patients struggling with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff.  Failures to control the infection included failure to train on proper hand-washing techniques and a nurse that did not wash her hands leaving an isolation room. Other failures included using the same vital sign equipment on various residents without disinfecting it properly with the correct products and not putting up si…

New criteria for a nursing home 5-star rating system brings lower scores for one state.  Ratings at the one-star level roes from 6% of facilities to 22% of facilities. Average ratings dropped from 3.3 to 2.8 stars.  Ratings are based on annual inspections, levels of staffing and quality of care, based on patient health and well-being. The executive director for the Long-Term Care Coalition says ratings are more accurate now, making a 4-5 star rating much more challenging to obtain.&nbs…

A nursing home worker that pleaded guilty to stealing more than $460,000 from nursing home patients has received a sentence of 28 months to 20 years.  She was the business manager at the nursing home. An audit of the nursing home books revealed the total estimated amount of her embezzlement The former nursing home employee has apologized saying she has a gambling problem.

New nursing home policies and procedures to increase safety of patients have been proposed after a patient wandered from the facility and died of hypothermia.  The patient had dementia and collapsed in the parking lot of the nursing home facility where she resided.  Her body was found by a snow plow driver. The new policies and procedures include installation of a door alert system, reassessment of needs of patients in danger of wandering, and retraining on how to identify missing pati…