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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general on Friday sued one of the nation’s largest nursing home chains over inadequate resident care, alleging that thin staffing made it numerically impossible to provide good care.
The novel approach in the lawsuit filed by outgoing Democratic Attorney General Gary King could be applied in other states if it succeeds. It targets seven nursing homes run by Preferred Care Partners Management Group L.P. of Plano, a privately held company with operations in at least 10 states: Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
“We hope that this action sends a message to nursing homes across the nation that the failure to provide the care that patients need and that homes are paid for will not be tolerated,” the state attorney general’s office wrote in response to questions from The Associated Press.
New Mexico’s case includes evidence such as confidential witnesses from the nursing homes’ own staffs alleging that managers recognized that nursing assistants were too overwhelmed to change diapers or help residents shower in a timely fashion. Sometimes there weren’t enough people working to help incapacitated residents eat and drink, the complaint says, leaving residents “deprived of food and water.”
New Mexico’s lawsuit relies on an industrial simulation of how long it takes to complete basic care tasks — for example, 3.5 minutes to reposition a resident in order to prevent bedsores.
By calculating the total minutes required to properly care for residents and comparing them to the actual number of hours worked, the state found deficiencies in the total hours worked by nursing assistants of as much as 50 percent. Those numbers are especially useful, New Mexico’s complaint says, because the nursing homes regularly boosted the number of nursing assistants who work during state inspections.]
