State Lifts Restrictions On Cda Nursing Home Life Care Center Makes ‘Significant Improvement,’ Can Admit Patients Once Again
Life Care Center of Coeur d’Alene can admit patients again after a monthlong ban.
The state Bureau of Facilities Standards completed a follow-up inspection of the nursing home Wednesday and decided to lift the ban, said John Hathaway of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
“We had seen some significant improvements,” Hathaway said. “Life Care seems to be making a real effort to get back on track and hold it there.”
The state imposed the ban on admissions and re-admissions and fined the nursing home $26,000 last month after an inspection in January found several problems with patient care.
The 113-page report following the inspection details instances of patients who had suffered multiple falls or verbal abuse from staff members, poor monitoring of medications, poor record-keeping, lack of attention to patient dignity and other problems.
Since then, the nursing home has hired two more nursing assistants and a part-time registered nurse, increased its training and launched reporting and monitoring systems to avoid the deficiencies cited in the report.
“The state and Life Care want the same thing - that is the highest quality of care for our residents,” said Life Care’s corporate spokesman, Beecher Hunter.
Other Idaho Life Care facilities also have been cited for substandard care recently by the state.
Quail Ridge Assisted Living Facility, a Life Care center in Pocatello, was fined $50,000 and admissions were banned in November after the death of one patient and the injury of another. The patient who died had been left unattended in the dining room and choked to death.
The state was going to revoke Quail Ridge’s license, but Life Care appealed and the facility was given a provisional license.
Fines or a ban on admissions have been imposed in the past year on Life Care centers of Boise, Treasure Valley and Idaho Falls.
But now, all seven of Life Care’s nursing facilities in Idaho are deficiency-free, according to the company.
“We have an excellent facility in Coeur d’Alene, and it will continue to serve the residents, families and the community with professionalism and compassion,” said Cathy Murray, vice president of Life Care’s Northwest division.
Hathaway said he attributes the problems to the fact that Life Care, a national company with more than 200 facilities in 28 states, recently opened four facilities in Idaho.
“We hadn’t had significant problems with them before the completion of these buildings,” Hathaway said. “We don’t believe they were ready. … We’re extremely hopeful that we’re on the other side of this.”
Life Care purchased 13 facilities in Oregon and Washington two years ago, making a total of 32 Life Care facilities in the Northwest. Because of the large number in the region, the corporation developed a regional division to provide more support to the nursing facilities.
“Too much of our attention was diverted to the development of the division organization itself, which perhaps caused us not to pay as much attention as we should to individual facilities,” Hunter said.
Life Care Center of Coeur d’Alene was opened in August 1996. It has 120 beds and 89 residents.
The ban on admissions at Life Care affected all nursing homes in Coeur d’Alene.
Kootenai Medical Center’s social services staff had to find other nursing homes to take patients. And Life Care patients admitted to the hospital were not allowed to return to Life Care.
“We had a couple of days when the bed status was a little full and we were getting a little concerned we would have a few families go out of the area,” said Pam Smith, a discharge planner at KMC. “When you take Life Care out of the loop, it means fewer choices for where you can go.”
, DataTimes