Healthcare workers who abused patients still allowed to work, audit says

Healthcare workers who abused patients still allowed to work, audit says

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Providers of at-home care typically check to make sure their employees are not on the ‘adverse action list,’ according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

Basically, it’s a no-fly list of nurses and service workers who have been found guilty of misconduct. However, LDH does not mandate these routine reviews and, with delays in the investigation process, it leaves an open door for repeat incidents and more risk for people who need the care.

Right now, there are no guidelines for what counts as abuse or neglect, and over the past four years, it took an average of 200+ days just to get the review started. Staffing shortages were a key reason for the delay.

Emily Dixon works at the State Legislative Auditor’s Office and uncovered these gaps.

”Without actual time frames to hold them accountable, it would be hard for the department itself to understand how much more staff it would need to meet those time frames,” Dixon said.

During that delay, those nurses and service workers were still able to work.

”So that lag of adding them to the list they could go be hired at another facility and if that facility doesn’t check and recheck on a regular basis, they will have no way of knowing that that person has been added,” Dixon said.

The audit uncovered that 11.1% of certified nurse aids who worked for a nursing home did so after being added to the list and more than 4% of service workers in facilities for people with disabilities.

”Whether the employer knows or doesn’t know puts that disabled person or that elderly person in a position where they are vulnerable to that,” Dixon said.

LDH recommends adding a supervisor position to oversee the investigations — given that more than half of the caregivers who appealed their cases were overturned.

”Maybe if a supervisor would have reviewed those and caught those it would have saved resources on the front end rather than the back end going through the resolution process,” Dixon said.

Their findings today — already inspiring future legislation. This issue hits home for Rhonda Butler, state representative for District 38, whose son relies on at-home care.

”If I’m giving them a lack of resources and they don’t have that, how are they doing a good job?” Butler said. “How are they going to care for these children and adults with special needs? They can’t. It’s the same way in the nursing home.”

Butler said she has prefilled a bill to increase funding for training and oversight for LDH.

“I think that if we put training in place and bring everyone to the table and work together — the providers, the people who are caring for these children, our leaders, and our state together I think we can make a big dent,” Butler said.

LDH announced $15 million in grants that would go toward better training for healthcare workers.

In response to the recent audit — LDH said it will now begin supervising the investigations, as well as require monthly checks for the adverse action list.

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