Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
When compliance violations are originally detected, it is a healthcare provider’s responsibility to respond to correct the violation as well develop systems to prevent the recurrence of future, similar offenses. Healthcare providers must investigate, update policies and procedures, implement corrective action plans, audit consistently, and when appropriate, report any discovered violation or misconduct to appropriate authorities.
A rehabilitation and healthcare center in Pennsylvania has been fined almost $800,000 in connection with a number of resident care issues that were discovered during two earlier inspections. In January the facility was fined $106,500, and in August the facility was fined $675,750.
In September, the state filed to invalidate the facility’s license; however, the facility was able to get the revocation delayed for 90 days in order to allow the facility time to implement the state’s requirements for correcting the problems. The facility has been able to meet the terms established by the state, now has a provisional license and is able to admit new clients.
The facility with a capacity of almost 300 beds, was found to be deficient in a number of resident care providing areas that included-extreme wound development, medication errors and omissions of pain medication, providing acceptable levels of nutrition and fluids, failure to follow physician’s orders or to notify physicians of changes in medical conditions and competent oversight and management by the facility administrator and the director of nursing.
The facility has made significant changes in personnel including a new medical director, nursing supervisor, wound care company and facility administrator. The facility now has about 200 residents. The more seriously ill residents have been moved to other facilities. The provisional license involves additional inspections to allow the DOH to have more oversight of the facility, and there is still a DOH contractor at the facility.
