New federal data reveals additional concerns at Texas nursing homes
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They go into septic shock, and it’s just flat-out neglect,” Woodson said. One November morning in 2018, Rosalie fell when a nurse tried to move her from the bed to her wheelchair. Charles got a phone call from the nursing home and rushed to the facility, but Rosalie had already been sent to the hospital for surgery. Taylor Goldenstein is a state bureau reporter covering the Attorney General and federal courts among other topics. She's previously written for the Austin-American Statesman, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Tampa Bay Times. She hails from the suburbs of Chicago and earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Mountain View, Rosalie’s facility, decreased its registered nurse staffing ratio by 46 percent the year after it was acquired by Creative Solutions. The facility’s corresponding CMS rating dropped from two stars to one in 2019. Creative Solutions operated with, on average, one registered nurse for every 98 residents in 2019. Mountain View Health & Rehabilitation was acquired in February 2018 by Creative Solutions in Healthcare, a company that owns and operates 64 facilities in Texas and is the state’s second-largest nursing home owner. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that due to the congregate nature and the type of residents they take care of , COVID-19 poses a greater risk to nursing home populations. The CDC has developed core practices that these facilities should implement to protect their residents better.
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Many healthcare experts believe that long-term care facilities in Texas and other states around the country have not been doing a good enough job at preventing and controlling the spread of COVID-19. In the same report, they stated that more than a third of Texas’ 5,489 COVID deaths have been nursing home residents. Texas is home to roughly 1,215 nursing homes, and more than three-quarters of these facilities have reported at least one coronavirus case since the pandemic started. As reported at the end of July, there have 8,291 confirmed cases in Texas nursing homes, which was four times more than the number in all of June.
In 2019, more than half of Texas nursing homes reported no registered nurses on their payroll at any given point. But the standard is so low as to be essentially meaningless, requiring only 0.4 licensed care hours per day, or one licensed nurse for 20 residents. By this standard, all facilities in Texas were, on average, adequately staffed in 2019.
Tracking the Coronavirus
Over the past year, the Texas Observer and Type Investigations analyzed tens of thousands of federal inspection reports, examined staffing ratios of more than 1,200 facilities in Texas, and reviewed four years of federal penalty data. The analysis found that nearly all of the for-profit corporations operate nursing homes well below the thresholds for adequate staffing determined by federal regulators. A review of inspection reports shows that many deaths and serious injuries are related to low staffing levels—a problem our analysis shows is particularly acute in the state’s for-profit nursing homes.
You can check the vaccination rates of residents and staff at any Medicare-certified nursing home, and compare them with state and national averages, onMedicare.gov’s Care Compare website. This month’s analysis includes, for the first time since AARP started its monthly looks at nursing home vaccination rates in June 2021, estimates of the percentage of nursing home residents who are “up to date” on COVID-19 vaccination. The recent deaths bring the total number of U.S. nursing home deaths from COVID-19 to more than 175,000, which is likely an undercount, given the lack of reporting in the early months of the pandemic. These deaths account for roughly a sixth of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., even though nursing homes house less than 1 percent of the entire U.S. population.
Statistics on Nursing homes in the U.S.
Paramedics disinfect a gurney in their ambulance before leaving a 131-bed nursing home in Tomball. This week, in Missouri County, locals expressed concern over 17 deaths that occurred from an outbreak at a nursing home.A novel coronavirus outbreak at a Missouri City nursing home, outside of Houston, has killed 17 residents, according to data from state officials. 79,7868,848N/AN/A79,7868,8481,222Assisted-living facility‘Lumped or other facilities’ shows data from states that have not broken down their data by facility type, so it might include data from nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. It was the largest five-day increase in long-term care facility deaths since the state began regularly reporting the data on April 13.
He is dedicated to fighting for justice, and welcomes the opportunity to help you. I know the answer to how much a nursing home wrongful death settlement is because I researched it and listed out the results for you above, which you should read to figure out the value of your case, but the average is between $600,000 and $800,000. Average settlements for nursing home wrongful death cases are not always this high, but in some cases, the situation warrants it.
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The analysis also found that almost half of all residents nationwide — 44 percent — were not up to date with their COVID-19 vaccination as of August 21. That means they’re either not fully vaccinated or are overdue for a booster shot. In some states, as many as 65 percent of residents were not up to date on shots.
As William Hanage at Harvard put it to me, both Massachusetts and Norway have seen about 60 percent of their coronavirus deaths occur in nursing homes. But for Massachusetts, that amounts to nearly 5,000 deaths, while in Norway, it is less than 200. Over a two-week period from late June to July 10, in 23 states that KFF characterized as “hot spots,” the number of cases in long-term care facilities increased by 18 percent. “With these corporate-owned facilities, where does the money go if we increase rates? The only way to improve care is to ensure the money doesn’t go into their pockets,” she said.
Managers at the center said COVID-19 raced through the nursing home despite its adherence to public health protocols. The Metropolitan Health District said it could not determine the source of the outbreak but suspected that the virus was brought in by a worker. Nationally, the death rate for the 23 states that report long-term care fatalities is 27 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Long-term care facilities have taken precautions — mandated testing, restrictions on visitors, isolating sick residents — but it still hasn’t been enough to suppress the virus’s spread. On April 13, nearly 30 percent of all coronavirus deaths were linked to nursing homes and assisted living centers. The COVID-19 death rate in U.S. nursing homes has increased for the fourth month in a row, anew AARP analysisof federal data shows. As deaths mounted, COVID-19 booster rates continued to lag, as they have for months, leaving many residents and staff without crucial protection. Each day, nursing homes report the number of residents who died due to COVID-19 to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
Holiday / 16 hours agoDigital nomads use lightweight and incredibly portable devices and supplies for easier carrying. It gives you the answers that you need in order to fight the virus, and in order to keep the virus at the front door and not let it come into the nursing home. There’s no other protective measure that’s going to give you that data and that assurance,” she added. Get highlights, trending news, and behind-the-scenes insights from Houston Public Media delivered to your inbox each week. Please read the disclaimer, incorporated here and that applies to all messages to me, which notes important things such as that I am not your attorney by virtue of messages being sent to me. He began practicing law by helping clients as a sanctioned student lawyer before receiving his law license, and second chaired his first jury trial in federal court before even graduating law school.
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