December 17, 1999|By Walter F. Roche Jr. | Walter F. Roche Jr.,SUN STAFF
The second Baltimore-area nursing home within a month is losing state and federal funding because of repeated problems with patient care, the latest of which sent an 89-year-old woman suffering from dehydration to the hospital, state health officials said.
Carol Benner, director of the state health department, said yesterday that funding would be cut off Dec. 30 for new patients admitted to Irvington Knolls Care Center at 22 S. Athol Ave. in West Baltimore. Funding for current patients in the 220-bed facility will end Jan. 28.
"We think we've corrected all the problems, but the state won't budge," said Shirley Grandison, the administrator of the home.
Benner, head of the division of quality care in the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said the action resulted from a series of inspections at Irvington that turned up conditions that could put patients at risk.
During the latest visit this month, state inspectors discovered that the home had failed to comply with a doctor's orders to adjust the medication for an 89-year-old woman who was suffering from dehydration.
The failure to adjust the dosage of a diuretic worsened the woman's condition, she said. Additionally, the home failed to monitor the patient's fluid intake and output, a standard procedure in such cases, she said.
As a result, Benner continued, the patient, who was suffering from multiple ailments, had to be hospitalized.
In the 14-page, latest report on the home, inspectors also noted the case of a 78-year-old male patient who underwent a significant change in health, including apparent blood clots. The nursing home, according to the report, failed to notify his doctor immediately despite a potentially life-threatening condition.
When they did notify the doctor, the report states, the nursing home staffer "erroneously transcribed an order for a drug which did not exist."
The patient did not get the needed medication until 24 hours after it had been ordered.
Yet another patient, diagnosed with a severe infection, did not get treatment with an antibiotic until three days after it had been ordered by the doctor.
Benner said previous inspections at the home in June last year and July this year turned up similar problems, some showing a pattern of substandard care posing a threat to patients' health.
In late November, the state issued a similar termination notice to the Lorien Nursing and Rehabilitation Center at 5009 Frankford Ave.
Irvington Knolls is owned by Sonya Gershowitz Goodman, a longtime operator of health care facilities in the area.
The action is the latest in a series by the state against nursing homes stemming from tightened federal requirements for the inspection of nursing homes participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Even more stringent rules requiring the state to impose financial penalties on nursing homes with repeat violations are about to be implemented under an initiative announced earlier this week in Washington.
Benner said the state was awaiting formal notice from the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration on those new standards and how they will be enforced.
According to Benner, the fines will be automatic for a facility that is found in two inspections in a row to have conditions resulting in harm to patients.
