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Officials of central Pa. nursing home respond to problems detailed by state

Patriot-News - 3/1/2023

Claremont Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Cumberland County has been cited by the state health department for a range of problems related to care of residents in recent months. The problems include missed medication doses, failure to provide scheduled showers, failure to provide the state-required minimum hours of daily care for some residents, and continuing to take new residents during times of understaffing. The state attributed many of the problems to insufficient staffing.

Claremont has been carrying out state-approved plans of correction.

Claremont is owned by New Jersey-based Allaire Health Services, which bought it from Cumberland County in July, 2021.

Benjamin Kurland, the CEO, and Kyle Kramer, the chief strategy officer, responded to questions from PennLive about the problems. Here are their full responses:

Q: In your view, what are the main causes of the problems?

A: When we took over operations of the Claremont Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, the market was just beginning to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the point of management transition, we were left with a facility that was deplete of permanent staff members, and the facility was using 90% agency staff members to staff the facility and care for the residents. While agency staff members are a positive resource, it is not the same as permanently hired staff members who embrace company values, are trained in organizational culture, and committed to delivering care at a high level of commitment and quality. The void of permanent staff who are formally engaged and definitively committed to quality and exemplary performance is a major cause of the issues Claremont has experienced.

Since November 2021, Claremont has decreased agency usage by over 20%, and the management team at Claremont is committed to aggressively recruiting and retaining staff that are committed and directly employed by the facility. In addition, when the management transition occurred between the County and the new management team, it was discovered that CMS staffing reports had not been submitted correctly. This error in data submission that occurred prior to the change of ownership remains on the facility’s record for 18 months and comes with a penalty that prevents the facility’s CMS staffing rating from reflecting actual (increased) staffing levels. [Editor’s note: This response refers to Claremont ratings from Medicare, which produces a guide to help people compare nursing homes. Claremont as of March 1 had an overall rating of 1 star out of 5, which equates to “much below average.”]

While we agree with some of the DOH findings during recent inspections, there are other findings with which we do not agree. In our industry, we respond in good faith to all regulatory inquiries with the main goal being resident safety and continuously improving quality of care.

Q: What assurances can you give residents and families such problems won’t happen again?

A: New Claremont leadership has done a great deal of work to ensure resident safety and elevated clinical quality in a comfortable home-like environment. Improvement initiatives include, but are not limited to, the development of a high-level strategic plan that includes Quality Assurance, auditing, regular and elevated communication with residents and families, increased hiring/recruitment resources, and efforts to align the facility to regional hospitals and physicians on a more focused level. Since the implementation of focused staffing recruitment initiatives, Claremont has hired multiple Nurses (RN/LPN) and Certified Nurse Aides (CNA). In the last three months alone, 80 staff members have been onboarded at Claremont.

Q: What is your message to the residents and loved ones and community members who may be alarmed by the results of recent state inspections at Claremont?

A: The Claremont facility is in substantial compliance with regulatory requirements, and the Department of Health has cleared the facility of any ongoing deficient practices. Claremont leadership has had regular communication with the Department of Health regarding current and ongoing practices, and the feedback the Department of Health has provided while on-site and off-site has been consistently positive. The internal changes implemented to date have had a positive impact on both residents and staff.

Claremont is committed to quality of care, the tenets of performance improvement, and earning the trust of all our stakeholders. Our operational and performance goals are rooted in the tenets of increasing value for patients/residents, our staff, and the overall market. We are continuously focused on opportunities for improvement and expect to see continued performance enhancement, more meaningful employee engagement as we add permanent staffing, and elevated market penetration and expansion.

To facilitate the achievement of these goals, Claremont leadership team members have undertaken increased regular rounding on staff and residents, continuously demonstrating a questioning attitude to learn what more can be done to meet the demands and needs of patients and residents and to further engage staff members. Feedback from residents and staff indicates that our stakeholders agree the facility is heading in the right direction and are extremely pleased with the current initiatives.

©2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit pennlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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