At Thursday night's meeting of NorCo Council, Human Services Director Sue Wandalowski suggested that the Gracedale's provisional license might be because the state Department of Health is still considering the facility's "plan of correction" for inadequate nursing care. And it's true that Gracedale does have the lowest nursing care rating of all 14 county-owned homes. But that's not why it has a provisional license. Newly elected Council member Dave Holland, who once was part of the Gracedale management team, had a couple of "clarifications", as he politely termed it, to what Wandalowski said.
Holland, who had the documents in front of him, said that the provisional license was issued because of "one of the elopements. That ended up in the J, which is the highest level of deficiency, when there was the elopement from the facility and the things that, you know, that were related to that ... ."
Elopement, as the word is used in nursing home jargon, refers to a situation when a resident leaves a nursing home unsupervised and under circumstances that can pose significant risks to his safety. It happens when a home lacks the proper protocols or sufficient staff. It falls under the "immediate jeopardy" (IJ) category, and when it exists, state regulators will increase their scrutiny of the home because it could result in very serious consequences.
Holland also noted that though information about nursing homes is readily available online, there is a lag. There is a lag of 90 days on the CMS nursing home compare webpage. The DOH website is a little better, but it has a 41-day lag.
This means that the public will be unaware of a serious deficiency until 41 days after it occurred. He requested that Gracedale notify County Council in real time whenever a deficiency is found at the home.
Wandalowski said she'd make them available.
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