Healthcare Compliance Perspective Nursing Home Fire:
The Compliance Officer should ask the Risk Manager to review the Emergency Preparedness Plan with the Compliance Committee to ensure that all employees receive education and training about the Emergency Preparedness Plan when they are hired and at regular intervals throughout the year. The Compliance Officer should make sure that periodic drills are scheduled that include evacuating the residents to safety for a variety of potential emergencies, e.g., fire, storms, floods and terrorist or armed invasions. The QAPI Nurse should audit staff participation to evaluate their competency in carrying out the drill.
When fire broke out in an Illinois nursing and rehab center two years ago, it endangered the lives of the 104 residents who had to be evacuated. Several of the residents were taken to the hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening smoke inhalation. The nursing home fire created heavy smoke in most of the center. At the time of the fire, it was not known who or what had caused the fire.
Last week a woman from East St. Louis was sentenced to serve five years in prison for setting the fire, and she was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution. She will also be required to have three years of supervised release after she serves her time in prison.
The woman had worked in the facility as a nursing assistant and she told investigators how she set the fire in the room of two bed-ridden residents by igniting the clothing in the residents’ closets with a lighter. Security cameras confirmed that the woman left the residents’ room shortly after the facility’s smoke alarm began to sound.
A spokesperson for the facility reported how hard the paramedics and staff worked getting water to the evacuated residents and finding facilities to relocate many of the them.
