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Three Missouri Nursing Homes on Poorest Performing List

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Three Missouri nursing homes show up on a list of the nation’s poorest performing nursing homes.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid says the Senior Estates in Kansas City, the St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Florissant, and West Village Manor in Columbia are among the 52 nursing homes that consistently provide poor quality care. The agency says all three of the homes have been considered as Special Focus Facilities for 19 months.

The designation starts a progressive system of enforcement that could, in time, take Medicaid and Medicare certification away from the home and clear the way for state action.

Washington and Florida are the only other states with three nursing homes on the list.

Response to Anderson Guest House Fire Clears Legislature

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State lawmakers respond to a tragic fire in southwest Missouri by requiring that residential care facilities have sprinkler systems.

Most nursing homes and other residential care facilities would have to have sprinkler systems, something missing at the Anderson Guest House that burned late last year, killing 11 people. It’s the "most" that disturbs Representative Jeff Roorda (D-Barnhart) who isn’t happy that homes with 20 or fewer residents are exempt. Roorda and others say the bill falls short of fully protecting the state’s elderly and disabled, because of the exemption.

Sponsor Kevin Wilson (R-Neosho) says the compromise was worth it to get the bill passed. Wilson says he vowed to do something to protect vulnerable residents in wake of the Anderson Guest House fire. The Anderson Guest House is located in his district.

SS SCS HCS HB 952 & 674 requires all residential care facilities to have fire alarms. It contains other fire safety requirements as well. The State Fire Marshal would receive greatest enforcement power and be allowed to hire more inspectors. If the Fire Marshal determines a home needs sprinklers, he can require them to install them.

Sprinkler systems would have to be retrofitted in older homes by the end of 2012. Loans would be made available by the state to help finance installation of the systems.

The House approved the bill on a unanimous 158-to-nothing vote.

 

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (:60 MP3)

Legislation Responds to Anderson Guest House Fire

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The tragedy of eleven deaths at a southwest Missouri residential home for the elderly and the mentally ill has prompted legislation requiring sprinkler systems at all long-term facilities.

Long-term care facilities licensed by the state, such as nursing homes, would have to have sprinkler systems, as well as complete fire alarm systems. Fire safety training, including fire drills, would be required. There would have to be staff members awake and dressed at all times so they could assist residents in cases of emergency.

Rep. Kevin Wilson (R-Neosho) tells colleagues they must toughen standards in wake of the fatal fire at the Anderson Guest House November 27th of last year. The facility didn’t have a sprinkler system. Wilson says the residents thought they were safe and were let down by the state.

The House rejected an amendment that would have allowed facilities to get ought of the sprinkler requirement if they met other fire safety standards. Many operators of older residential care facilities have said that they sprinkler requirement would force them out of business, because of its cost. The requirement remains in the bill. Older homes will have to have sprinkler systems by 2012. State loans will be made available to finance the cost.

Another positive vote is needed to send HCS HB 952 & 674 to the Senate.

                                                                        

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (:60 MP3)

Group Home Fire Safety Bill Advances

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The legislature is working to prevent another Anderson Guest House tragedy.

What started out as a tougher elder abuse law took on an entirely new identify after the group home in Anderson burned last November and left 12 people dead.

Now the proposal will require all group homes to have sophisticated smoke, fire, and heat alarms within two years, and modern sprinkler systems within six years. Sponsor Michael Gibbons thinks a majority of Missouri’s group homes lack modern sprnkler systems.

Senator Bill Stouffer of Napton fears the sprinkler requiremenst will drive operating costs so high that some homes will close. He says many of the facilities are old and the sprinkler installation costs will be "tremendous." He cites one 60-bed facility that has received a bid of almost $650,000 for a sprinkler system.

One of his fellow senator has suggested it’s too bad, but sprinkler systems should be a cost of doing business.

Gibbons has built in a program to help group homes finance the sprinkler systems. He says he wants places to be safe but he also wants places that can afford to stay open.

Gibbons’ plan has the state loaning the group homes half of the costs of installing the systems.

Stouffer has failed to get the sprinkler requirement removed.

download Bob Priddy’s story (:60 mp;3)

Governor Blunt to Tour Fatal Fire Scene

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Governor Blunt plans to tour the scene of one of the worst fire tragedies in Missouri history, the Anderson Guest House in which 10 residents died and 25 were injured in an overnight fire. The governor’s spokesman, Brian Hauswirth, says Blunt will be briefed by other state officials who are at the scene. State Fire Marshal Randy Cole is on the scene along with State Highway Patrol Colonel James Keathley and Department of Public Safety Director Mark James. Hauswirth says the governor wants to hear first-hand what happened. The Anderson Guest House serves both mentally ill and elderly residents. Thirty-three residents and two staff members were at the home at the time of the fire. The dead ranged in age from the early 20s to the elderly. No names have been released. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

Curtailing Nursing Home Medication Mistakes

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A study of medication errors in nursing homes suggests they can be curtailed by talk and technology. Researchers under supervision of Professor Jill Scott-Cawiezell have watched 16-thousand medications being delivered in nursing homes and they’ve seen how good people working hard face situations in which errors are produced. Cawiezell, who is with the nursing school at the University of Missouri-Columbia, says nursing home staff members are aware of all of the errors…but leaders often are aware of less than five percent of them. She says nursing home administators need to cultivate a culture of safety. But she says it’s contrary to the way business has often been done in which someone who makes a mistake is branded as “bad.” She says the culture of safety leads to an understand that most mistakes in health care are failures of systems that set up people for mistakes. She says technology is a system that can alleviate opportunities for errors by providing more accurate record-keeping and better direction. But she says it is important for management to understand how life happens to the staff, listen to staff problems, and take steps to solve the problems instead of assessing blame. Her research is published in the professional journal “Nursing Forum.”

Nursing Home CEO Faces Long Prison Term

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A big nursing home company and its former CEO admit they conspired to defraud Medicare and Medicaid to the tune of at least four-million dollars. The federal prosecutor for eastern Missouri, Catherine Hanaway, says the care provided by American Healthcare and its CEO Robert Wachter was almost non-existent. She says one patient was beaten to death by an employee. Other patients were mistreated and ignored. Some were left to lie in their own soiled beds. The prosecutor recommends Wachter go to prison for 18 months.

State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Marks Residents’ Rights Week

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Residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities have rights. And, the State Department of Health and Senior Services is taking advantage of Residents’ Rights week to bring attention to those rights. Carol Scott, the Department’s State Long-Term Care Ombudsman, says any of the 55,000 residents of Missouri’s long-term care facilities or family members can call her office to lodge a complaint. The number to call is 800-309-3282. Scott says complaints can also be directed to volunteers from her office who visit long-term care facilities on a weekly basis. On average, the office receives between 6,000 and 7,000 complaints each year. Most complaints deal with things like denial of a favorite food or concerns about cleanliness. From time to time there are complaints about patient abuse. Those calls are referred to the Elder Abuse Hotline for investigation.

Related web sites:
Missouri’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program

Even Tougher Medicaid Fraud Law Planned

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Medicaid fraud legislation will be back in the regular legislative session in January after lawmakers could not reach enough of a compromise to trigger a special legislative session this week. But it won’t be the same. It will be tougher. The House has refused to accept the strong medicaid fraud bill backed by the senate and the governor…and the governor refused to call a session to pass the bill providing Medical Assistance to Workers with Disabilities–which the House wants–because of that. Senator Chris Koster of Harrisonville, the sponsor of the fraud bill, says that’s okay because he wants to make the fraud provisions tougher next year. And he wants to make it a pocketbook issue for providers. He says he’s willing to work with House members to raise state reimbursements to medicaid service providers. But he says he will not allow them to get “another dollar” until the state enactes his tougher anti-medicaid-fraud legislation. House critics of Koster’s bill this year argued the provisions against Medicaid fraud would drive doctors out of Missouri. Koster doesn’t buy that claim one bit. He says 20 states have similar fraud programs to the one he proposed this year, and doctors have not left those states. So next year, he has a new deal—if doctors and other medicaid providers want more money from the state, they’d better be ready to accept even tougher fraud standards. Introduction of bills for the 2007 legislative session begins December 1

Free ID Program Going Slowly

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Critics of the Voter Photo ID law question whether the state can get free identifications into the hands of everyone who wants one by the November election. Though State Revenue Department Director Trish Vincent is optimistc the program to distribute free identification will go well, she acknowledges that only 1,800 have been given out. The Revenue Department estimates as many as 170,000 voting-age Missourians don’t have photo ID’s. The Secretary of State office says it’s closer to 240,000. Lawsuits filed against the Voter Photo ID law criticize the provisions for obtaining a free ID and question whether the state can get free ID’s into the hands of everyone who wants one. Vincent says the Revenue Department has completed 22 visits to retirement facilites and have 80 more are scheduled. Also, free ID’s are offered at the 183 license fee offices across the state. Vincent isn’t convinced that all 170,000 to 240,000 Missourians talked about need or want the free ID’s. Vincent promises the department will do whatever is necessary to get the ID’s into the hands of people who need them.

Related web sites:
Voter Photo ID
Photo ID Mobile Unit Schedule