Gracedale Update: Day Care Open, Census Up, Falls Down, Impaired Resident Leaves, Administrator Quits

At their November 6 Human Services Committee meeting of Northampton County Council, Gracedale Administrator Michelle Morton provided members with an update concerning the nursing home. She reported that current census is 501 residents. and that daily nursing care (hours of nursing care per resident per day is 3.2 at the facility/ The home is rated at 3 stars(average), according to the most recent Medicare report. She noted that falls by residents are at their lowest point in the past four years, and that a free daycare for staff is finally open. She failed to answer whether she's leaving the home, but I'm reliably informed that she has since resigned after a tenure of just 8 months. 

Council member Kelly Keegan was effusive in her praise for Morton. "Gracedale is our moral obligation," she said, adding that "[l]ots of people like to stomp all over it." ... Your results are so great. You should be proud of it. .... I'm sure that all the negative things you heard - they just bring you down."

Gracedale is considered a "moral obligation," and if that is so, County Council has a moral obligation to provide oversight, especially given the turnaround and financial losses. 

Council President Lori Vargo Heffner told Morton, "I hope you'll continue to tell us whatever you need to tell us," she said, adding that Council wants to know how it can help and hates to see so much money going to agency nursing. 

Council member Ron Heckman was surprised to learn that though Morton pledged that she would look "at all the information that has been given to me," she never looked at an operational assessment of Gracedale performed in 2023. That assessment concluded that the home needs to pay more to staff. Human Services Director Sue Wandalowski said this omission was her mistake and had a copy sent to Morton during the meeting. 

Morton failed to disclose that the home was recently cited after it allowed a resident to discharge himself without having a physician determine that he had the capacity to safely discharge himself, which placed him in immediate jeopardy. The resident "had diagnoses that included problems related to living alone, altered mental status, history of cerebral vascular accident (a stroke, a medical condition involving the interruption of blood flow to a part of the brain resulting in brain damage), muscle weakness, cognitive communication deficit (difficulty with communication from impaired cognitive function), metabolic encephalopathy (brain dysfunction from metabolic disturbances), and below the knee amputation. Review of the care plan revealed that the resident had a performance deficit with activities of daily living, limited physical mobility, impaired cognitive function, and short-term memory loss, and his discharge plan was uncertain."

A physician's assistant allowed the resident to discharge himself against medical advice and without conducting a required capacity evaluation. The resident left with his belongings, no medications, no confirmed or safe destination, and had only a wheelchair for transportation. Ten minutes later, police called to ask what the home was doing.