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Senior Citizen Politics
Study of Nursing Home Disasters in Last Year's
Hurricanes Recommends Changes
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An estimated 1.336 deaths have been attributed to Katrina.
More than 4,000
are still reported missing - the number
of fatalities may never be known. |
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August 18, 2006 The highly publicized problems
that occurred with the protection and evacuation of senior citizens from
nursing homes during last year's hurricanes along the Gulf Coast
prompted the Senate Select Committee on Aging to hold two hearings
seeking ways to make improvements. Yesterday, the Inspector General of
Health and Human Services issued a report requested by Sen. Herb Kohl
(D-Wis.), ranking Democrat on the Senate committee providing more
details on what happened and recommending actions to do better this
year.
 Federal Report Calls for Changes in Procedures for
Evacuating Nursing Home Residents During Disasters
The emergency evacuation plans of nursing homes
located in the Gulf States during four hurricanes within the past year
met federal and state regulations but had a number of problems,
according to a report issued on Friday by
HHS
Inspector General Daniel Levinson, the
New York Times
reports.
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Related Stories |
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More Efforts this Year to Protect Elderly in Nursing
Homes from Disasters
Educational program for long-term care providers
developed by non-profit
June 22, 2006 Few, especially senior citizens,
will forget last year's nightmare of
St. Ritas Nursing Home, where the owners were charged with 34 counts of
negligent homicide, following the destruction by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. That horror is spurring
action this year to better protect older Americans living in long-term
care communities. Earlier this month, for example, long-term care
providers in St. Petersburg, Florida, took part in PREPARE - a new
educational training program designed to protect seniors in long-term
care facilities from disasters such as hurricanes, pandemics,
bioterrorism and other disasters.
Read more...
Aging Committee Tries Again at Learning How to
Protect Seniors in Disasters
Homeland Security
official outlines major issues faced after Katrina
May 19, 2006 Yesterday, the Senate Special
Committee on Aging held it's second hearing pertaining to questions of
safety for senior citizens during natural disasters, like Hurricane
Katrina. The committee heard from five witnesses, including Dan
Sutherland of Homeland Security, who discussed the major problems for
older Americans hit by Katrina.
Read
more...
Read more
on
Politics for Senior Citizens |
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For the report -- requested by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.),
ranking member of the
Senate Special
Committee on Aging -- HHS OIG conducted on site visits and
interviews with staff and administrators at 20 of the 2,526 nursing
homes in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
 Among the 20 nursing homes, 13 had evacuated
residents before the hurricanes reached land, and seven did not evacuate
residents. According to the report, the 13 nursing homes that evacuated
residents experienced the most serious problems, such as:
● unavailability of buses contracted to evacuate
residents;
● unreliability or lack of air conditioning in alternative
transportation;
● inadequate staff;
● longer-than-expected travel times, which required staff to ration
food and water;
● failure to transport some medications, oxygen canisters and
incontinence supplies; and
● dehydration, pressure sores and travel related illnesses, such as
urinary tract infections, experienced by residents.
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Recommendations
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To improve nursing home emergency preparedness
and ensure effective execution of plans, we recommend the following:
● The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should consider
strengthening Federal certification standards for nursing home emergency
plans by including requirements for specific elements of emergency
planning.
> CMS could develop a core set of required
elements for inclusion in nursing home plans with corresponding changes
to the Interpretive Guidelines for surveyors use in evaluating
emergency plans. These required elements should apply to aft Medicare or
Medicaid certified facilities, and also be tailored to address specific
local risks. In developing this set of core elements, CMS could
collaborate with State emergency management entities, nursing home
associations, and other parties knowledgeable about nursing home
operations or emergency preparedness.
> CMS should encourage communication and
collaboration between State and local emergency entitles and nursing
homes. This effort could include providing guidance and technical
assistance to States, facilitating a dialogue between nursing homes and
emergency management authorities. and encouraging local emergency
management review of facility emergency plans.
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In addition, the report finds that some of the
evacuation plans of the 20 nursing homes lacked:
● Guidelines on whether to evacuate residents;
● Adequate estimates of the amount of food and water required for
evacuations;
● Recommendations on alternative evacuation routes in the event of
traffic congestion;
● Official arrangements with host facilities;
● Guidelines on how and when to return; and
● Formal partnerships with local officials.
Based on guidelines from other states, professional
associations and emergency management and long-term care experts, the
report recommends 25 "core elements" of emergency preparedness for the
evacuation plans of the 16,125 nursing homes that receive Medicare and
Medicaid funds.
In addition, the report recommends that
CMS
encourage more collaboration with state and local emergency officials.
Comments
Alice Hedt, executive director of the
National Citizens'
Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, said, "It is too much to
expect that nursing home operators can make all these difficult
decisions in a very short time and with a lot of stressors," adding, "It
is absolutely essential that a system be put in place up front, and the
government must take the leadership role in that."
In a written statement, CMS Administrator Mark
McClellan, said he agreed with the report and the agency will consider
the recommendations (Gross, New York Times, 8/18).
>> The report is available
online.
Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the report.
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