Long-term acute-care hospitals face growing scrutiny

I was happy to see that the NY Times has brought this topic to light -- I personally experienced the substandard care of a long-term care facility and the loss of my father as a result. It was such a painful experience, and, at the time it struck me how little public/evaluative information is available about these facilities. I have since created a website called gunthersgrades.com, where families and friends can rate and review LTACs as well as nursing homes -- we are focused in Illinois right now but hope to expand across the US. In such a critical care environment, the quality of care shouldn't be compromised.

They need to look at more than the quality. LTACs are almost purely "for profit' hospital systems, there is huge pressure to get "bodies in the beds" regardless of the appropriateness of this level of care. It is also easy for them to manipulate the length of stay to maximize profits due to the way they are paid.
I have to say thou, patients who meet criteria to be in one are generally very very sick patients and a average mortality of 20% is expected.

My mother is in a nursing home called Walden, in Concord, MA. They get $1,000.00 per day and are paid up, because what Medicare and Medicaid didn't pay, her family did. And yet we can hardly ever get a call through to her and her Alzheimer's disease is getting worse, despite the ad on the call waiting that says that they are experts in rehabilitating and caring for people with the condition! They seem to be purposefully letting people wait while the ad plays most of the time, but they lie.

Will Sun Healthcare Group Inc be next? Their CEO was responsible for my mother, Evelyn Calvert’s death in 2004, according to their own Medical Director Dr L Scott Stoney in lawsuits I won both in 2006 and 2008. Judge Gregory W Jones stated CEO “Rick Matros is the dangerous one, he killed her mother and she proved it, certainly she can state it.” He knowingly and willingly violated a Calif state injunction killing countless patients yet never was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s office -why? CORRUPTION.
Read the evidence:
www.sunhealthcaregroupinc.blogspot.com

Deb Calvert, Newport Beach, California

A large for-profit, publicly held healthcare corporation, SUNH, violated a Calif state injunction causing the deaths of countless patients in 2003-2004 yet was never prosecuted by the Attorney General's office. Instead they pursued elder abuse charges against Hispanic employees of a San Diego, Escondido, facility operated by Sun, later dropping charges, yet fining Sun $2.5 M. Wow Sun sidestepped that bullet. Sun has a Political Action Committee that was formed in May, 2004, giving millions of dollars to Max Baucus and other Senators and Representatives of the House, even money went to President Obama -BLOOD MONEY.

Governor Schwarzenegger are you investigating this very serious corruption?

I have grown to understand, that Long-term acute-care hospitals face growing scrutiny, because the acute healthcare modules suggest, that the nursing care is mechanical.

Top level management has not made the decision,to mandate the nursing administration, to participate in cognitive counseling or behavioral counseling.
Unfortunately American nurses perceive the quarterly forcast meetings as cost effectiveness and customer service in exchange for higher wages.

However, the concept of client centered needs and the order of operations; are not clearly understood by inexperienced nursing staff.
This is how and why there is a number of
unexplained deaths, patient abuse, patient neglect and workers compensation dilemmas within the long term acute care system as well as the healthcare facility arena.

The nursing association creates an enormous labor census of multiethic and diverse cultures; whom participate in the nursing arena, whom operate and function in the nursing profession as a clerical, clinical means. The ends is a paycheck.
Meanwhile, the reality is quality patient care; consists with a great deal more.

The the top level management can agree to vote on requesting, Nursing Continuing education department; to develop a cognitive/behavioral rational therapy counseling employment package. This can improve the effective appraisals for the nursing arena.

I agree these are hard economical times. It can be very hard for top level management to create a benefit, to reduce and remove wrecklessness and no regard to human life. But each healthcare arena has an ethics team and nursing education organization within his or her organizational chart.

A top, diagnonal, lateral, and down communication can be executed. Discussions to improve the quality of morale and nursing services can be implemented. The mandated courses can be created, tested, staffed and scheduled for nursing division when appraisals occur.

Barbara Guster,BPS HumanServices, PSR,CBA
Weareregularfolks!

She said that nurses that take care of these patients have most likely only been trained in the technical aspects of doing so and that if they lack the psychological training to be really good at dealing with these types of patients, the fix is education. You can indoctrinate some people with values and ethics, and it does work. It could alleviate some of the problems stated in the article. If you've even visited a loved one/patient in a nursing home, you are aware of how depressing it can be for the caretakers. Also, you are aware of how angry you get when your patient isn't treated properly and how much you appreciated the staff that really acted like they cared about your patient.
Barbara feels that empathy can be learned and she may be right. It is worth a try to explore her concept more.

My Mom is a success story from Kindred LTAC in south Tampa. The staff was amazing. They tend to be minimally staffed for the number of patients. I believe that patients who want to get better and adhere to the instructions will receive more and better attention then others who don't. I believe human nature plays a large role in the success or failure, even if the failure results in death. Humans are not God so we can't beleive we can fix eveyone.

Our father was at s Select Speciality in Kansas City, KS against our wishes for about 6 weeks. It was the biggest nightmare of our lives and our father. Respiratory therapy was great to get him off of a ventilator, traik and kidney dialysis. THANK YOU!

Other than that, we had to beg and scream to get him into a chair and have staff care for his needs. 45 minutes to an hour was the sad wait for same while they sat around gossiping about patient's and their families!

Select Specialty LTAC need to be shut down....lack of care from physicians that own them and don't care for patients in return!!! They keep renting from facilities until they are found out about and run / hid to another!