Ivy Bean was 104 when she died Wednesday, July 28. She was known as “the World’s Oldest Tweeter.”

According to the Irish Times, Ivy Bean wrote about her life in Hillside nursing home in Bradford. She started out on Facebook, but had to switch to Twitter when she exceeded her quota of 5000 fans. In two years, Ivy amassed more than 62,000 followers. Her handle was “IvyBean104.”

She tweeted about her meals, her fellow residents and the daily happenings at the home. “It’s been really busy in Hillside this week, the lounges have been decorated and we have got new curtains, it looks lovely,” was a recent tweet. Her last tweet was, “Going to have my lunch now will be back later.” [from Irish Times]

There is now officially no reason for anyone to claim that they are “too old” to learn how to use new technology.  My new inspirational phrase is now: “Ivy did it!”

This week, Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed into law SB 326, a landmark nursing home safety reform bill. This legislation is designed to improve living conditions by increasing the number of nursing home inspectors and nursing staff, and increasing licensing fees. And–perhaps most important–there are provisions designed to reduce chronic violence that has been reported in the residences.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, this new legislation was signed even as the state faces $13 billion budget deficit.

“This is historic legislation. It begins a new era of nursing home care in Illinois,” [Governor] Quinn said at the Thompson Center signing….

The law will beef up existing criminal background checks and psychological screenings of incoming nursing home residents and place the relatively small number of dangerous patients into separate, secure therapeutic wards. The most ambitious measures are designed to divert thousands of mentally disabled people from nursing homes and into an array of smaller, residential programs that provide intensive therapy and supervision for those who require it, but greater independence for those who don’t.

HensonFuerst is heartened by this measure taken by Illinois. We believe that life in North Carolina nursing homes could be improved if there were more inspections…and if there were very real penalties for those that failed, especially if they failed to improve on their areas of failure. Our nursing home abuse attorneys hear from family members of people who have been neglected or abused in North Carolina nursing homes. We do our part to try to keep seniors safe, but we can only have an affect on behalf of our clients–one person at a time. We would welcome this type of state-wide initiative to improve the lives of nursing home residents across the state.

[Michael Gelder, Quinn's top health care adviser]  acknowledged that many industry insiders and advocates for the disabled are skeptical that the sweeping reforms can be achieved given Illinois’ deficit. ”We need the skeptics out there to keep our feet to the fire,” he said. [from the Chicago Tribune]

In North Carolina, we still need to start the fire!

(To read more about nursing home abuse, visit our dedicated web page: North Carolina Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers)

From Eye on Dare blog (July 22, 2010):

Dare Commissioner Virginia Tillett said this week that Britthaven Nursing Home in Nags Head is not doing an adequate job in caring for the elderly residents of the Outer Banks who are entrusted to their care. Tillett said she has been hearing compliants for the past six months and asked everyone to make suggestions as to how the Britthaven corporation could be encouraged to do a better job. She said Senator Marc Basnight was also interested in the problem.

If you would like to submit your suggestions, you can reach friendly ears here:

Senator Marc Basnight:  Marc.Basnight@ncleg.net (919-733-6854)

Dare Commissioner Virginia Tillett:  vtillett@darenc.com (252-475-5000, main switchboard)

The Nurse Licensure Compact sounds like a good idea…in theory. In order to help get nurses to high-need areas, 24 states have banded together, agreeing that nurses who gain a license to practice in a Compact state are automatically allowed to practice in other participating states, without having to go through additional licensing procedures. In an ideal world, the Nurse Licensure Compact benefits nurses and the member states. Win—Win.

It is hardly an ideal world, however. The Compact, which allows good nurses to travel where they are needed, can also make it easy for bad nurses to skip town and practice bad medicine again in a different state. That’s a “Win” for the bad nurse, and a big, fat “Lose” for everyone else…including the people of North Carolina. Our state participates in the Nurse Licensure Compact.

An article in USA Today (“Bad Nurses Able to Keep Working in Other States”) discusses the problem in frightening detail. One nurse who was fired from a hospital in Wisconsin and charged with six felony counts of narcotics possession got a job in New Bern, NC. As the nurse, Craig Peske, said:

“When I went to go for the job in North Carolina, I looked at the status of my license, and it was still active,” says Peske, 36, who was later convicted of two felony drug charges. “That kind of surprised me, so I figured I would take it.”

Got that?  The nurse knew enough to take advantage of the Compact, but the program isn’t organized enough to keep states updated with the nurses’ performance or status. Advocates say that nurses deserve their day in court before they are black-balled in multiple states. But the reverse is also true–without the Compact, bad nurses would have to apply for licenses in each state, which would provide more chances that criminal charges would be discovered before a nurse harmed more patients.

Is North Carolina an easy landing place for bad nurses from other states?

Unfortunately, nursing homes are often short-staffed, and therefore can be “easy” jobs to get for just about anyone with a license. HensonFuerst frequently reports about nurses who manage to do great harm to nursing home patients, and we represent the families of people who have been seriously injured in care facilities. We believe that the Nurse Licensure Compact system needs to be overhauled. The citizens of North Carolina should be able to feel confident that the nurses hired in our state are qualified, competent, and properly licensed.

The vast majority of nurses, here and across the country, are wonderful, caring professionals. We have to close the information gaps that allow bad nurses to jump on a bus, come to North Carolina, and practice dangerous medicine in our state.

RESOURCES

USA TODAY article

NC Board of Nursing: Nurse Disciplinary Actions and License Search

ProPublica:  Tracking Nurses

In North Carolina, if a restaurant scores below a “C” grade for sanitary reasons during a health inspection, the business must close until it passes inspection.  If property owners allow their homes to fall into disrepair, the state can condemn the residence as unsafe, and in some cases, the building may be demolished.

But if a nursing home “fails” Medicare inspections…or if the facility has a history of unsafe practices, or of hiring workers who bring harm to the feeble and elderly residents, do you know what happens?

There’s a small fine. But that’s more than offset by the money Medicare will continue to pay into the nursing home on behalf of the patients living there.

Case in point: Britthaven of Chapel Hill.  This nursing home also has been rated by Medicare as one of the worst in the country. Britthaven of Chapel Hill has been called out as a “Special Focus Facility,” which means that they have a history of persistent poor quality of care. In February, six Britthaven patients were hospitalized from morphine overdose…one patient died of complications. A nurse has been charged with murder in that case.

And now, this article in Saturday’s News & Observer, and this article in today’s newspaper.

If you have legal questions about nursing home care, feel free to contact the attorneys of HensonFuerst. If you have questions, we have answers.