Healthcare Compliance Perspective
In general, all reported or filed complaints should be investigated to discover the cause and to implement corrective procedures and training to prevent future recurrences. Certain occurrences, like a change in ownership or the banning of a family member from the facility after filing a complaint, should be viewed as red flags and increase the Compliance Officer’s awareness for potential compliance issues and violations.
An investigation is underway by Missouri state authorities due to multiple complaints and some incidents that were discovered by both state and federal inspections of the nursing home. These issues included incidents of sub-standard, care. The facility is also being sued for the wrongful death of a resident with epilepsy because the resident was allegedly not given his medication.
A woman whose husband was in the facility’s dementia unit was barred from visiting her husband due to her accusations of neglect and her filing of a complaint against the facility. She has been very vocal to the news media about the kind of care her husband received while at the facility. She associates the rapid decline in care to an ownership change in April 2017.
The woman shared about how hard it was for her to have to relinquish the care of her husband to a nursing home and how she had selected this nursing home because her mother had received good care there as had other family members and some friends.
Her concern about the quality of care her husband was receiving began when he was able to escape from the facility and was not found for what she says was “hours.” The woman described some other alleged neglectful, sub-standard care incidents about the of her husband.
During this same time frame, several other incidents involving alleged neglect and sub-standard care were reported. One incident involved serious injury to a resident’s feet when the resident was being transferred from a wheelchair. Another involved the alleged neglect of an incontinent resident who was unattended for so long that his wheelchair pad was soaked with urine and fecal material. It was also claimed that when the nurse attended the resident she did not do so in a sanitary and proper way.
In November 2017, the issue regarding the allegation of not providing residents’ medications and sub-standard care was reported. A representative of the company told news media that the medication failure was not the fault of the nursing home. He said it was because a “third party” failed to deliver the medications on time.
The wrongful death suit was filed in March 2018.
It was noted that no fines have been levied against the nursing home, but the investigation is still ongoing
