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Best and worst south-central Kansas nursing homes: List reveals those cited for abuse

Wichita Eagle - 1/5/2020

Jan. 5--Six nursing homes and rehab centers in south-central Kansas -- including two in Sedgwick County -- have been cited for abuse or neglect, according to reports from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

And now members of the public can see those citations for themselves with a new red warning icon on the agency's Nursing Home Compare website, which rates nursing homes by quality of care and links to inspection reports.

The nursing home industry calls the icon arbitrary, overly simplistic and an inaccurate portrayal of the quality of care delivered in facilities nationwide.

But advocates say it's an excellent tool to help consumers choose a nursing home.

Nursing homes with no warning icon may have past or unreported abuse incidents, the Center for Medicare Advocacy said.

Eighty-three facilities in 10 south-central Kansas counties around and including Wichita are ranked on the Nursing Home Compare website. The counties The Eagle looked at are Butler, Cowley, Harper, Harvey, Kingman, Marion, McPherson, Reno, Sedgwick and Sumner.

Abuse, neglect or exploitation of residents noted at the six facilities now labeled with the new warning icon include:

-- McPherson Operator, which operates as McPherson Health and Rehab, 1601 N. Main in McPherson was cited on Nov. 6, 2018, after two employees took personal cellphone photos of bruising on private areas of a resident's body. Unauthorized photographing and recording of residents is prohibited. The employees were fired and the photos reported to law enforcement, according to an inspection report.

Nursing home administrator Shelby Kendrick said in a prepared statement that being labeled with the abuse icon is "an upsetting situation."

"While we may disagree with an inspection's findings, we take any and all issues that come up very seriously," she wrote. "We immediately put a plan of correction in place, the plan was approved by State health officials, and it has been implemented. Our patients and residents are safe and being well cared for."

The facility has been cited nine times for resident abuse, neglect or exploitation over the past three years, according to Nursing Home Compare.

-- Pine Village, 86 Twenty-Second Ave. in Moundridge was cited on Aug. 29, two days after staff saw a male certified nurse aide standing between a female resident's legs "with his pants unzipped, and down around his hips" while the CNA was supposed to be giving the woman a bed bath, according to an inspection report. The resident's nightgown was "up around her waist" and her genitals were exposed, the report says. The facility sent the CNA to the nurse's desk "away from all the residents" and called law enforcement.

The nursing home's administrator, Shelby Shaw, said in a recent Eagle interview that the CNA is no longer employed at the facility. "We do not tolerate abuse here at Pine Village," she said.

The facility has been cited twice for abuse, neglect or exploitation in the past three years, according to Nursing Home Compare.

-- Sandpiper Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, 5808 W. 8th St. in Wichita was cited on March 7 after staff "failed to adequately assess and treat a deterioration" in a resident's medical condition and failed to provide immediate emergency care, according to an inspection report. The resident, who had thick mucous in their mouth after eating, died within two hours. Sandpiper suspended then later fired a licensed nurse over the incident.

The facility could not be reached for comment.

Over the past three years, Sandpiper has been cited 11 times for abuse, neglect or exploitation, according to Nursing Home Compare. The facility was also the site of a reported rape in May, when a 91-year-old woman told authorities she'd been sexually assaulted by a fellow resident. No one was arrested or charged in that case.

-- Spring View Manor, 412 S. 8th St. in Conway Springs was cited on March 14 after an agency nurse "verbally demeaned" and performed unnecessary nighttime neurological checks on a resident to punish the resident for slipping out of a wheelchair, according to an inspection report. After the incident, Spring View Manor told the agency that the nurse "was not (to) return to the facility," the report says.

Asked for comment on the allegations, nursing home administrator Darcy Bluma said she's only been employed by Spring View for two months, so "I don't know anything about it."

But, she said: "I stand behind our care, 100%. We don't have those issues currently."

The facility has been cited twice for abuse, neglect or exploitation over the past three years.

-- Sumner County Operator, which operates as Wellington Health and Rehab, 1600 W. 8th St. in Wellington was cited in November 2018 for failing to adequately supervise a resident and report abuse after one resident molested another resident three times in 75 minutes, according to an inspection report.

The facility was cited again in February after a staff member took and shared a Snapchat recording of a resident without consent. The staff member told investigators they took the recording to cheer up the resident, another inspection report says.

The facility did not return a message seeking comment on the allegations. It has been cited for abuse, neglect or exploitation four times over the past three years, according to Nursing Home Compare.

-- Westview of Derby, 445 N. Westview Dr. in Derby, was cited in December 2018 after a resident sexually assaulted a fellow resident who has a severe cognitive impairment. The accused resident had a history of having sexual contact with another facility resident, according to an inspection report.

Nursing home administrator Olga Ritchey said she wasn't working at Westview at the time and "can't speak to that particular incident." But, she said, Westview has "made a lot of improvements and changes since then."

The facility has been cited four times for abuse, neglect or exploitation over the past three years, according to Nursing Home Compare. It was also among Kansas nursing homes taken over by the state in 2018 after it struggled to pay for food, medicine and utilities, and it was sued by the family of an 88-year-old woman who died as the result of alleged staff negligence in 2018. The lawsuit settled for an undisclosed amount earlier this year.

A new tool for consumers

On the website, the eye-catching icon -- a hand held up in a "stop" motion inside a red circle -- was used on the latest update in early December. The website has information on more than 15,000 nursing homes certified by Medicare and Medicaid across the country.

The icon flags "facilities that have been recently cited for resident harm or potential harm for abuse or neglect," the website says.

The icon alerts consumers "when a nursing home has been cited for an abuse violation in the past year or over each of the past two years, depending on the level of harm," according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit law organization that advocates for seniors and people with disabilities.

Medicare says it will review nursing home inspection reports and "update the alert icons to make sure you have the most recent information on nursing home abuse."

"I really like it ... anything that helps consumers identify facilities that already have problems with providing safe care, or that have already been cited for abuse, neglect or exploitation," said Mitzi McFatrich, executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care in Lawrence. "None of us wants a loved one to be someplace that's not safe and where people are not providing safe levels of care.

"Repeatedly, what we hear year after year, day after day, from consumers who call us is, 'This is overwhelming, how do I decide what's a quality facility? How can I be sure that where I go I'll get good care?' So I think it's a very, very important tool that CMS is using. And I'm delighted to see it."

The country's largest association of long-term and post-acute care providers -- the American Health Care Association -- told Medicare officials that the icon creates a strong visual recommendation "to stop and avoid" going to those nursing homes.

"The quantity of federal regulations to which nursing homes must adhere are very complex and the use of this 'icon' to determine whether a facility is a quality facility is very misleading," Nikki R. Strong, executive director of the Missouri Health Care Association, said in an email to The Star.

"The nursing home icon does not measure quality, it only measures compliance with a few regulations that themselves do not reflect the overall quality of the care being provided in a facility.

"A single incident at an otherwise good nursing home with quality measured by the satisfaction of its residents and the outcomes they achieve can still result in an icon."

Strong said her association provides training to help members avoid instances of abuse and neglect.

Medicare advises people who are considering a nursing home that's been cited for abuse "to ask the administrator or other staff about what they're doing to keep residents safe from abuse, neglect, mistreatment, or exploitation."

McFatrich also recommends a sit-down with the administrator.

"Each time a deficiency is cited, the facility has to write a plan of correction," she said. "So what I'm saying to people who call me is you might want to prioritize the facilities that you look at based on the kind of inspection history they have had.

"But if you are looking at one of these facilities because it's the only one in your community then ... I want to read the actual survey report, which is available publicly at every facility and also online.

"And, I want to talk to the administrator and I want to know exactly what they did to correct it."

McFatrich's nonprofit organization is happy to share its database it has kept for more than 20 years on long-term care facilities in Kansas.

Medicare also suggests that people use a long-term ombudsman -- advocates for residents who live in nursing homes, care homes and assisted living facilities.

Strong recommends talking to "other families or residents to see what their experience is in a particular home rather than rely on this misleading icon."

Just because a nursing home on Medicare's list doesn't have one of the new abuse icons doesn't mean abuse is not happening there, the Center for Medicare Advocacy cautioned.

The Nursing Home Compare website considers health inspections, staffing levels and quality of care measurements based on "resident assessment and Medicare claims data" when it ranks facilities, according to Medicare.

Each nursing home is given a rating between 1 and 5 stars -- 5 is considered above-average quality and 1 is below average. Rankings change periodically.

These are the nursing homes in the 10 south-central Kansas counties surrounding and including Wichita that Medicare gave one star and five stars overall. The entire list can be viewed at medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare.

5-star nursing homes in south-central Kansas:

Butler County -- none

Cowley County

-- Arkansas City Presbyterian Manor, 1711 N. 4th St. in Arkansas City

-- Cumbernauld Village, 716 Tweed St. in Winfield

Harper County

-- Attica Long Term Care Facility, 302 N. Botkin in Attica

Harvey County

-- Halstead Health and Rehabilitation Center, 915 McNair St. in Halstead

-- Kansas Christian Home, 1035 S.E. Third St. in Newton

Kingman County -- none

Marion County

-- St. Luke Living Center, 535 S. Freeborn in Marion

McPherson County

-- Moundridge Manor, 710 N. Christian Ave. in Moundridge

-- Pleasant View Home, 108 N. Walnut in Inman

-- Riverview Estates, 202 S. Washington St. in Marquette

Reno County -- none

Sedgwick County

-- Avita Health and Rehab at Reeds Cove, 2114 N. 127th Ct. E. in Wichita

-- Caritas Center, Inc., 1400 S. Sheriden St. in Wichita

-- Cheney Golden Age Home, 724 N. Main in Cheney

-- Derby Health and Rehabilitation Center, 731 Klein Circle in Derby

-- Family Health and Rehabilitation Center, 639 S. Maize Ct. in Wichita

-- Larksfield Place, 2828 N. Governeour in Wichita

-- Medicalodges Goddard, 501 Easy St. in Goddard

-- Medicalodges Wichita, 2280 S. Minneapolis Ave., in Wichita

-- Mount St. Mary, 3700 E. Lincoln St. in Wichita

-- Regent Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare, 10604 E. 13th St. in Wichita

-- Via Christi Village Ridge, 3636 N. Ridge Rd. in Wichita

-- Wichita Presbyterian Manor, 4700 W. 13th St. N. in Wichita

Sumner County -- none

1-star nursing homes in south-central Kansas:

Butler County

-- El Dorado Care and Rehabilitation Center, 900 Country Club Ln. in El Dorado

-- Life Care Center of Andover, 621 W. 21st in Andover

Cowley County

-- Winfield Rest Haven II, LLC, 1611 Ritchie in Winfield

Harper County -- none

Harvey County -- none

Kingman County -- none

Marion County

-- Salem Home, 704 S. Ash St. in Hillsboro

McPherson County

-- McPherson Operator LLC, 1601 N. Main St. in McPherson

Reno County -- none

Sedgwick County

-- Life Care Center of Wichita, 622 N. Edgemoor St. in Wichita

-- Orchard Gardens, 1600 S. Woodlawn Blvd. in Wichita

-- Sandpiper Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, 5808 W. 8th St. N. in Wichita

-- Seville Operator LLC, 1319 Seville St. in Wichita

-- Westview of Derby, 445 N. Westview Dr. in Derby

-- Wichita Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, 7101 E. 21st St. N. in Wichita

Sumner County

-- Villa Maria, 116 S. Central Ave. in Mulvane

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