Greeneville Nursing Home Cited in Elopement

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A Greeneville, Tenn. nursing home has been hit with an admissions freeze and $6,000 in fines after a patient with a history of wandering walked out of the facility and fell down a 15 foot embankment suffering cuts and abrasions.
The patient's elopement occurred despite the fact that an alarm sounded as he walked out the door of the Loughlin Care Center on July 3.
State surveyors reported that a receptionist heard the alarm, peeked out the door but did nothing else.
"I peeked through the window and didn't see anything so I reset the alarm," the receptionist told state inspectors. "No one told me to go outside and look around," she added.
A landscape worker subsequently went into the home and reported that a patient had fallen and was injured.
The state report on the incident concludes that the 90-bed facility placed the patient "in an environment detrimental to health, safety and welfare."
Meaghan K. Smith, a spokeswoman for Ballad Health, which owns the facility, said the incident was self reported to state triggering an automatic investigation
She said the facility had filed a corrective action plan that was accepted by federal officials but she acknowledged that the plan had yet to win state approval.
State Health Commissioner Dr. John Dreyzehner ordered a freeze on any new admissions to the home, imposed the $6,000 in fines and appointed a special monitor to oversee actions at the facility.
Nursing home records show the patient was wearing an alarm device known as a "Wanderguard" which triggered the alarm when he followed a landscape worker out the front door.
The state surveyors also noted that five other patients at the facility with a wandering history had improperly installed Wanderguards. The alarms were attached to their wheelchairs not to their legs.
As for the patient who was injured, surveyors noted that he actually fell three times during the incident.
The unnamed patient was treated for cuts and bruises at a local emergency room, the report states.
The facility failed to ensure that a resident was free from an avoidable accident with injuries, the report concludes.
The Ballad spokeswoman said,"The nursing home has taken steps to update security procedures that we believe will improve the safety of residents and mitigate the opportunity for any similar event to occur in the future."
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