Local Article Identifies Violations at Residential Care Facilities

Examination of records of violations at residential care facilities for the elderly was part of an investigative report in today's San Luis Obispo Tribune. The story was titled "County's Worst Offending Homes Are Cited After Repeat Violations". Poor medication management, insufficient and unqualified staffing, poor food quality, and inadequate dementia care provisions were listed as the most common violations found by the Tribune.

The local facilities were listed and violations were discussed in the article. Training the staff to use proper emergency response programs was also an issue at one facility, where a resident wandered outside, fell, and broke a hip.

At another facility inspectors found that staff failed to call 911 after a resident fell and suffered broken ribs.

I would like to add the information that when a frail elder falls caregivers can call 911 for rescue workers to come to the house. The fire department provides a free lift assist and the rescue workers can check for injuries. If there is any chance at all that there is an injury caregivers can call 911 for an ambulance to bring paramedics and transport to the emergency room.

Moving someone who has an injury can make the injury worse. Let trained medical personnel check for injuries and lift someone from the floor. The local fire department provides a free lift assist. Call 911 when there is a fall and ask for rescue workers to come to the house for a lift assist.

Website Lists Nursing Home Ratings, Violations, Complaints

Memberofthefamily.net is a website that says on its homepage has information on 16,000 Medicare/Medicaid certified nursing homes in the United States, including the National Watch List of homes with violations and substantiated complaints.

They also have a list of nursing homes that are "deficiency free" on an Honor Role.

The website explains the reports are based on recent government surveys, and describes the reports on the website as easy to understand. I agree the information was presented so that the average person could easily read it, and it was in regular language, not medical terms or technical terms.

The states are listed so you can search your own. There is a Nursing Home Annual Survey Rating System which includes four color codes. The codes include red for "Actual Harm or Immediate Jeopardy", yellow for "Potential for More Than Minimal Harm", blue for "Potential Harm", and green for "No Violations Reported."

There is also a place for "Repeat Violations" for "same violation on two or more of the survey dates listed.

The Nursing Home Watch List shows warnings, the name of the facility with a hyperlink to its page, and the address. You can read the list of ratings, violations, and scope/severity codes for each home on the Watch List.

Nursing Home Quality Trends and Staffing includes Quality Indicators developed by the University of Wisconsin. Again there are four color codes to identify the number of quality measures that do not meet standards or to show there is no more than one quality measure not meeting standards.

Reading the lists of violations shows activities such as "Provide services to meet the needs and preferences of each resident".