State investigates another complaint over patient care at Champaign County Nursing Home
URBANA – The Illinois Department of Public Health is investigating another complaint regarding patient care at the Champaign County Nursing Home.
In the latest incident, which occurred in early May, a female patient was injured when she was being transferred by an agency aide. The patient suffered a laceration which required 24 stitches, according to Mike Scavotto, the consultant hired two years ago to help manage the nursing home.
A sign on the patient's door said that all transfers were to have been done by two staff members, Scavotto said.
"This woman just said, I'm going to do it the way I want to do it and screw the patient," he said. "And that's what happened."
The aide will not work again at the nursing home, said Andrew Buffenbarger, the facility's administrator.
"We do periodically get bad apples. That's just how it works. You find out the hard way that that's the case and then you kick them out," Buffenbarger said.
But the result of the incident could be another penalty assessed against the nursing home.
Earlier this year the facility faced fines and the loss of payments adding up to more than $100,000. Most of those penalties have been reduced to a loss of about $14,000 in federal funding, he said.
"But we could find ourselves back in the same denial-of-payments cycle with IDPH," Scavotto said.
The seriousness of the incident, he said, requires a revisit by public health department investigators, which increases the odds that other problems could be found.
"If that happens," Scavotto wrote in a memo to members of the nursing home board of directors, "the nightmare regulatory cycle kicks in again and we could be looking at a repeat of the last several months."
He told the board that the spate of complaints made against the nursing home "tend to be family-driven and substantive."
"One can debate the degree of violation, but there does appear to be a legitimacy factor common to the complaints," he wrote. "Improving customer service skills is of paramount importance and all departments will be brought into this effort."
"We report the incident to the state (IDPH) and then the state decides whether to do an investigation and pull her certification," Buffenbarger said.
Meanwhile, tough budget times lie ahead for the county-run nursing home, Scavotto said.
Some Medicare reimbursements could be cut, and Medicaid payments could be frozen in the coming year, he said.
"We could see our reimbursement go down. They could actually cut the new regulations and make it more difficult to qualify for the higher levels of therapy. That will cause us problems in some cases," he said. "Our Medicare reimbursement could go down. But we're not alone. This is a national issue."
The nursing home's census has improved dramatically in recent months, he noted. The goal has been an average daily census of 195. But it was 198 in April, 206 in May and 203 in June.
"That's good, and no matter what happens we're going to need volume," he said. "But if we don't get any rate increases, I see no way we can provide salary increases for anybody. I don't see how that would fly."
MoreIn my opinion when they brought this firm in; the nursing home is out of the business of caring for people it is about the all might DOLLAR! All of the garbage talking about the aides is non-sense! We are over worked, there is never enough staff to run the unit that is the money maker! Everthing in there is ran by numbers and the numbers don't show the reality of the situation. There are going to be more incidents if there isn't enough staff in the building to run it correctly. There is NEVER people willing to come out of their offices to help but they are the ones barking orders and want things done in a timely manner. If the county board or someone will take the time out to come and see what goes on they will know what the problem really is; just pop in from time to time. If it's planned of course things are going to be peaches and cream! The weekends are horrible; if you call and tell them you are short on nurses or aides, all they will say is to deal with what you have....NO VOLUNTEERS to come in and work though! The bottom line is that it is reality when dealing with people not all about numbers and if you sit behind a desk all day and don't come out to see whats going on, then you are stuck in your fairy tale world and not in reality!
I agree. CCNH has changed a lot since it moved to its new facility. Everything is about money. They cater to the residents and family memebers of those who have money and the others come behind that. Also, the staffing is horrible. It was said that this aide just said forget it, ill do it my way. This was not the case. On the day in question, the unit was not fully staffed and the aide didn't have anyone to help her put this resident in bed. Your damned if you do and damned if you don't. This aide would have been in trouble if she had of waited to put the resident in bed because it could have been an hour or more until she could have gotten help. Everyone is trying to make sure that the residents on thier assingment are taken care of before they stop to help someone else. In my opinion, the "board" is there for nothing and is another waste of ccnh's money. The management is terrible, the DON is a racist, and its been over 7 months since she's even met with her staff. They ignore the aides when they ask for help, and a lot of times won't give the help because of personal feelings they have against their staff members. I think the board is trying to get the nursing home to sell so that they can buy it and bring in their own staff at a lower pay rate. The board has been there for years, and things have only gotten worse. In my opinion the whole management staff should be fired because none of them are doing their job! There's not enough housekeepers, the dietary staff are really short on help, there is never enough food for the residents and on many occasions residents have had to settle for grilled cheese sandwichs instead of the meals stated on their menus. The county can't pay their bills, and they make the residents suffer because of this. But I guess all of this is the "aides" fault too! That aide was a former CCNH staff member and was a very good one. She's often requested by residents and their family members. But hey somebody's gotta take the blame right!
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