DENVER—Two Colorado nursing homes included on a list of the nation’s worst are now considered in compliance with federal regulations but they still must continue to show they can meet those standards, the state health department said Thursday.
Howard Roitman, who oversees Colorado’s nursing home inspections, said inspectors visited both Eagle Ridge at Grand Valley in Grand Junction and Kindred Healthcare & Rehab Center in Northglenn this month and found they had corrected problems seen in their last inspections.
Those weren’t full inspections and the facilities will have to pass two more to show they can stay in compliance before they can be taken off the list, Roitman said.
“The fact that they’re on the list doesn’t necessarily tell people what the facility looks like when they walk in today,” he said.
The two homes were first included on a list of 120 “special focus” facilities targeted by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for having more deficiencies than average. This week, the agency made public a list of 54 of those facilities that haven’t shown enough improvement in follow-up inspections. The homes subject to two inspections a year, rather than the usual one, Mike Fierberg, a regional spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.
The release came after lawmakers and advocacy pushed the federal government to make it easier for people to identify poorly performing nursing homes.
Roitman said the federal government requires each state to list two nursing homes on the “special focus” list.
Eagle Ridge’s violations date to 2005, the year before Quality Life Management took over managing the home at the request of the state health department, said Jay Moskowitz, chief executive officer the company. He said Wheat Ridge-based Quality Life has made improvements like hiring more staff and training workers.
“Our goal right now is to reassure (residents and their families) that we are giving them good care, the care they deserve,” he said.
David Strain of Kindred Healthcare acknowledged the facility has had regulatory struggles but said it has improved.
In a written statement, Strain said Kindred Healthcare ranks better than the state average on key quality measures like pain management and maintaining mobility and activity levels.
Reports on the most recent inspections are not available yet. According to the most recent inspection reports available online, most of the violations that turned up in the two Colorado homes did not result in injuries but posed a potential for harm, according to state inspectors. They perform the inspections for federal regulators.
A June inspection of Eagle Ridge found a licensed practical nurse didn’t document where on a patient she had injected insulin and that one patient who was supposed to take four pills daily on her own said she couldn’t get them down and didn’t know what they were for.
Without admitting to the conclusions of the inspectors, Eagle Ridge said nurses had been retrained in administering medication, including the importance of staying with patients to make sure they have taken their pills.
A September inspection at Kindred found workers had failed to investigate the origin of bruises and skin tears on two of out 23 sample patients.
The facility promised to perform weekly head-to-toe skin assessments and report anything suspicious to the state, according to the report.
Fierberg said residents and families can ask to see a home’s most recent inspection results when they visit.
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On the Net:
Results of nursing home surveys:
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services nursing home compliance:
