This is an alert, folks! http://www.kentucky.com/2010/12/23/1576826/nursing-home-regulators-focused.html
Nursing home regulators are rolling out new ways to better track citations issued to long-term-care facilities, a move designed to further protect residents in the state's more than 300 nursing homes.
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services Inspector General said this week that her office has established regular meetings with its staff to better track citations, is upping its training of nursing home regulators and is developing a standardized intake form for reporting abuse and neglect.
A series of Herald-Leader stories this summer found that Type A citations — those given when abuse and neglect result in death, broken bones or other serious injuries — aren't always reviewed by prosecutors and local law enforcement and that few Type A citations result in successful prosecutions.
Although the state sends all of the most serious nursing home violations to the attorney general's office, staff there said they never received at least five Type A citations issued by the inspector general from December 2006 through 2009.
Meanwhile, some investigations of Type A citations languished for months. Only seven of 107 Type A citations in which state investigators thought residents were in danger of death or serious injury resulted in prosecutions, the Herald-Leader found.
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services Inspector General said this week that her office has established regular meetings with its staff to better track citations, is upping its training of nursing home regulators and is developing a standardized intake form for reporting abuse and neglect.
A series of Herald-Leader stories this summer found that Type A citations — those given when abuse and neglect result in death, broken bones or other serious injuries — aren't always reviewed by prosecutors and local law enforcement and that few Type A citations result in successful prosecutions.
Although the state sends all of the most serious nursing home violations to the attorney general's office, staff there said they never received at least five Type A citations issued by the inspector general from December 2006 through 2009.
Meanwhile, some investigations of Type A citations languished for months. Only seven of 107 Type A citations in which state investigators thought residents were in danger of death or serious injury resulted in prosecutions, the Herald-Leader found.