Mattress may cure major nursing home headache

The mattress, along with a treatment system, promises to reduce bedsores and the homes' liabilities.

By LUCY MORGAN, Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief

© St. Petersburg Times
published March 8, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- Could something as simple as mattresses help solve Florida's nursing home crisis?

It seems so, said Bentley Lipscomb, state director of the AARP, who unveiled a plan Thursday to help solve the huge liability problem facing nursing homes.

Tempur-Med, maker of a foam mattress like the ones developed for the space shuttle, has been conducting a pilot program with nursing homes and long-term care facilities aimed at reducing bedsores that can cause serious problems for patients.

The pilot program, conducted at Marriott living facilities and Delta nursing homes, including one in Tampa, dramatically reduced the number of bedsores.

The mattress, which adjusts to a patient's body temperature, is part of a system that includes ointments and salves, and care provided under guidelines and training from Tempur-Med.

As a result, Tempur-Med, Marriott and Delta have joined forces with insurance companies Marsh USA and Provider Alliance to offer discounts to long-term care facilities that use the system.

Marsh vice president Keith P. Becker said the company will offer liability insurance discounts of up to 12 percent. Tempur-Med will cover any nursing home using the system for the first $250,000 of a judgment against the facility.

Lipscomb, former director of the Florida Department of Elderly Affairs, says the program won't eliminate liability problems by itself, but it could make a serious dent in the problem without any action from the Legislature.

Lipscomb said most lawsuits filed against long-term care facilities arise from malnutrition, dehydration and bedsores.

The Delta Health Group has used the mattresses and accompanying medications at nursing homes in Tampa and Pensacola and cut the number of patients with bedsores from as many as 18 percent to less than 1 percent.

"The residents love them," said Susan Rasche, director of nursing at Delta Healthcare Center of Tampa on E Fletcher Ave., which has about 225 patients. "It's a significant help."

One 87-year-old patient was unhappy with every mattress she tried, Rasche said, but "she hasn't made a peep since she got one of these."

Delta uses the system in six of its 36 Florida nursing homes. Marriott is converting all of its long-term care facilities to the system.

"At first we had some real resistance from the staff," said Marriott vice president Jeffrey W. Ferguson. "I told our general managers "thou shalt do this,' and now they are absolutely raving about the difference it has made to health care."

Joel Guerin, president of Tempur-Med, said the system costs nursing homes about about $600 per patient a year but will save facilities money in the long run.

Lipscomb said the AARP will receive no financial benefit from the program.

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