Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

A report released by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows that not all states have similar disclosure requirements with regard to sex offenders and parolees in nursing homes. Further, many long-term care facilities do not impose stricter supervisory requirements on those with prior convictions because they are either unaware of a prior conviction, or they base these supervisory decisions on residents' behaviors. Thus, many sex offenders or parolees may be monitored poorly until an incident results; at which time, it may be too late.

For the highlights of the report:
Download file

For the full report:
Download file

The inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department found that 55 nursing homes between 2000 and 2002 should have been penalized for jeopardizing patients' safety. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid should have ended their contracts but the agency's staff were often reluctant to displace residents if they thought a facility would improve their performance.

In addition to ending a home's Medicare contract, the government is required to deny payment for new admissions when nursing homes take more than three months to come into "substantial compliance" with federal rules.

For the full article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-nursing-homes,1,4877821.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with the Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy have prepared a study to better understand the size and characteristics of the long-term care population. Some key findings are as follows:

• 6.5 % of those age 65 or older, 2.2 million people, live in a residential care facility.
• Most of these 2.2 million, 1.45 million live in nursing homes, with more than 750,000 living in alternative residential care settings.
• Relative to older persons in traditional private housing, the residential care population was far more likely to receive help with ADLs and to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.
• The prevalence of disability and dementias is dramatically higher in facility residential care than in community care settings, and higher yet in nursing homes.
• Persons living in residential care facilities are more likely to have incomes below $10,000, roughly the federal poverty level for older couples.

For the full article:

http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/reports/2006/3natlsur.pdf

The FDA today released technical guidance to help hospital bed manufacturers, hospitals, nursing homes, and private caregivers assess the safety of bedrails.

The guide can be downloaded here:
Download file

To combat staffing insufficiencies and ensure that family members of nursing home residents are aware of the staffing at homes, new regulations have been published in the Oct. 28th Federal Register.

Facilities are required to post - at the beginning of each shift and "in a prominent place readily accessible to residents and visitors":
•Actual hours worked (as opposed to scheduled to be worked) by direct care workers by category - RN, LPN/LVN, and CAN
•Resident census

To download the regulations and CMS's explanation of them, go to: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/.
Click on "Browse" and then "Back Issue." The regulations are under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) has developed a "command and control" online simulation course to help train emergency responders in handling a fire in a nursing home. The simulation presents the user with a kitchen fire in a two-story nursing home. It is designed to help command officials better understand the problems that may occur within nursing facilities during emergencies. Course objectives include safe removal of all occupants and containment and control of fire in the building of origin.

Registration for the course is available at http://www.training.fema.gov.

Note: The course was updated in Februrary, 2006. http://www.usfa.fema.gov/about/media/2006releases/020106.shtm