St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, located at 11400 Mehl Avenue, has earned the dubious distinction of being rated as one of the 54 worst-performing nursing homes in the nation by the Centers for Medicare and & Medicaid Services, a federal agency.
The facility is located in unincorporated St. Louis County near Florissant and is operated by SW Management of Skokie, Ill.
St. Elizabeth appears on a list of nursing homes released last week by the Centers for Medicare and & Medicaid Services (CMMS), naming 54 Special Focus Facilities that have failed to make significant progress on the most recent survey.
These facilities are nursing homes with a history of serious quality problems. The CMMS, together with state agencies, visits more than 16,000 nursing homes regularly to determine if the facilities provide the quality of care that Medicaid or Medicare requires.
According to reports by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), which conducts unannounced nursing home inspections for the state and federal government, St. Elizabeth was cited for 213 deficiencies in operating requirements during 11 inspections between September 2003 and April 2007.
DHSS provides a written Statement of Deficiencies to non-compliant nursing facilities describing each violation. State deficiencies are classified as Class I, II or III. In 11 inspections, the St. Elizabeth nursing home had 36 Class I violations and at least 87 Class II violations.
Class I violations, the most severe, involve issues that may pose an imminent danger to the health safety or welfare of residents. Class II violations affect the health, safety or welfare of residents but do not pose imminent danger.
Repeated deficiencies, according to reports, included lack of cleanliness at the facility, not keeping patients properly cleaned, bed sores on patients, immobile patients not turned at regular intervals, meals served at improper temperatures, safety code violations, lack of training for staff, poor record-keeping, and inadequate safeguarding of the personal property and funds of patients.
Some of the deficiencies are similar to those a retired registered nurse said she observed as an employee at the facility many years ago.
“Bathing and turning was a big issue – turning to prevent bedsores – and they were not being fed properly or being fed cold food,” Laverne Allen said.
Allen said missing property was commonplace.
“There were things that the patients’ relatives said they had bought for them on the day shift and they were not documented, and when they asked you for them, you couldn’t find them,” she said.
Not surprisingly, being called-out by the federal government in this manner came as shameful and unwelcome news to Sheldon Wolfe, who describes himself as an officer with SW Management, which operates the facility.
“We are very unhappy we are on the list. It is embarrassing. We do not believe that we should be on it,” Wolfe said.
“We are always committed to the best patient care possible. We have taken steps to ensure that whatever problems existed will be fixed and hopefully never return again.”
Wolfe claims SW Management never received complaints about some of the issues reported.
Lisa Morrison, director at St. Elizabeth, did not respond to calls asking for a visit or comment.
SW Management said it has purchased new furniture and made other changes to correct conditions at St. Elizabeth.
“We’ve hired different staff. We are monitoring staff and more controls to make sure people are doing their jobs properly,” Wolfe said.
In a statement about the report, the American Association of Retired Persons supported outing poor-performing nursing homes to improve facility quality and resident care.
“Residents in the poorest-performing nursing homes and their families have a right to know that the care they receive may be sub-standard,” said David Certner, AARP legislative counsel.
“People in need of 24-hour care should not have to be concerned that their nursing home is a potentially harmful environment. This information will also be helpful to individuals and their families who are looking to choose a quality facility.”
Two other nursing homes in Missouri made the top poor-performing nursing home list – Senior Estates in Kansas City and West Village Manor in Columbia.