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Nursing home is on list of worst

Apollo Health & Rehabilitation Center is one of three Florida homes that are cited.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published November 30, 2007

St. Petersburg's Apollo Health & Rehabilitation Center has landed on a government list of the nation's 54 worst nursing homes.

The first "poor performing" nursing home list, released Thursday, aims to push the facilities to improve and give patients a powerful new piece of information, said officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which compiled the ranking.

The homes are among roughly 130 that federal and state regulators say have a three-year history of "yo-yo" compliance: They fix a problem for one inspection only to have it crop up again later. The list singled out 54 homes that failed to fix problems noted in two inspections in the last year, said Jeff Nelligan, director of media affairs for the federal agency.

Apollo, 1000 24th St. N, is one of three Florida facilities on the list. The others are Key West Convalescent Center in Key West and Palms Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Lauderdale Lakes.

In August, state inspectors found 11 Apollo violations, including failure to provide proper care to residents with feeding tubes, manage resident funds and review the drug regimen of each resident on a monthly basis.

Six months earlier, inspectors had found 17 violations, including one related to physically restraining residents for "discipline or convenience" and failure to provide adequate housekeeping. Inspectors did not find that the violations resulted in any injuries.

Most nursing homes have some deficiencies during inspections, with the average being six, federal officials say.

State regulators already had put Apollo on a six-month inspection cycle, instead of the standard annual review, because of some deficiencies, said Polly Weaver, bureau chief for the Agency for Health Care Administration.

Among the problems: Staff members failed to report changes in a dying resident's condition to her doctor and to provide her with cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The incident resulted in two citations in March 2006. The home was fined $10,000.

In a federal administrative decision upholding the fines, which Apollo had appealed, Administrative Judge Steven Kessel called the state's findings "classic evidence of neglect."

"There is no way of deciding whether withholding CPR caused the resident to die," the judge wrote in the June decision. "In this case withholding CPR from the resident deprived her of the possibility of life."

Apollo's administrator, Jon Bradford, declined an interview and released only a written statement. It said, in part, "we don't believe that the list accurately represents the current care environment at Apollo. The list is outdated and based on information that is nearly two years old. We addressed those issues immediately and have continuously demonstrated a commitment to providing quality care and a premier facility for our patients."

Nelligan, the federal spokesman, said the list takes into account information that is less than a year old.

The 120-bed Apollo is owned by Greenbrook NH LLC, which state records show is registered to Greystone Healthcare Management Corp. in Tampa. Greystone Tribeca Acquisition LLC of New York is listed as the company's management.

Seminole resident Michael H. Connor said he was not happy with his late mother's stay at Apollo. Ruth Connor died at the home in February, at the age of 82, after little less than a year.

"My experience with my mom was sheer horror," Connor said.

The air mattress she slept on after developing bed sores was filthy, he said. He said he could rarely find a clean wash rag and he had to beg staff members to change her urine bag.

Connor said he complained to state health officials and hired a lawyer, who told him he wouldn't win a lawsuit.

What's a patient to make of all this? The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is quick to say people shouldn't rule out a nursing home just because it's on the list. Spokeswoman Mary Kahn said she expects many of them to improve now that their status has been publicized.

"This is just a piece of information for a family," Kahn said.

Dr. Bruce Robinson, chief of geriatrics at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, said he has often criticized the nature of nursing home inspections, which he describes as a "focus on gotchas" that don't necessarily add up to poor patient care. But when a nursing home is a repeat violator, he said, there are obvious problems that need to be resolved.

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247. Times researcher Caryn Baird and staff writer Steve Nohlgren contributed to this report.

FAST FACTS

Help in selection

Need help choosing a nursing home?

-Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration offers a one-stop shopping site at ahcaxnet.fdhc.state.fl.us/nhcguide. Get detailed tips on how to pick a nursing home, a searchable database of nursing homes by location and characteristics and a five-star rating system that shows how homes stack up against nearby competitors. You can get a printed Nursing Home Guide by calling 1-888-419-3456 toll-free.

-The federal government has a searchable database. Go to www.medicare.gov, then click on "Compare Nursing Homes in Your Area."

[Last modified November 30, 2007, 00:07:21]