Our share of the fuct nursing homes
By way of Consumerist we have a list of the nation’s worst offenders in the elder care system, 128 facilities singled out for “special focus.” Here in our area there’s two getting the skunk-eye from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Carolyn Boone Lewis Health Care Center in DC proper has been on the list for a full 34 months. You can see the full assessment here, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say this is a facility on the short road to losing funding toot sweet. Some joyous little bits are a below-average percentage of residents getting flu and/or pneumococcal vaccines (60% & 19% vs District averages of 83% and 68%), below average number of RN minutes per resident (11min vs 30min DC and National average) and 18 health deficiencies cites, rather than the DC average of 15 or the National average of 8.
Ruxton Health Of Woodbridge is the only Virginia facility on the list and a comparative newcomer with only 18 months on the list. Their percentages also looked better with regards to bedsores, vaccinations, and other items. It’s when you get into the citations that this for-profit agency looks worse with 21 health citations and 6 fire safety citations, versus the average 8 and 3. Scarily, the few items that supposedly impacted “many” rather than “few” residents was their failure to “Store, cook, and give out food in a safe and clean way” and “Get rid of garbage properly.” Yuck.
