Knoxville Nursing Home put on Special Focus List

Hillcrest West nursing home in Knoxville, Tennessee has been flagged by the Federal government as a chronically poor performer which recently placed the facility on its Special Focus Facility list. According to a recent article by Scott Barker in the Knoxville News Sentinel, of the 319 nursing homes in Tennessee, Hillcrest West is one of only three that received this designation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In order to receive the designation, the facility must consistently and repeatedly have serious administration, health and sanitation violations over a significant time period. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigates nursing homes to determine if they have problems with administration, sanitation, quality of care and abuse and neglect. If any of these problems exist, the facility is cited with a violation. In its most recent study of the Hillcrest West nursing home, the facility was cited with 11 violations. The three year record for the facility however included 23 violations found in 2007 and 37 in 2006. Some of the violations included failure to notify family when a nursing home patient was injured, the need to instruct staff not to steal from patients and an incident involving slapping of a nursing home patient.

The attorneys at The Higgins Firm is a Tennessee Law Firm that represent patients in nursing homes and their families in actions against nursing homes when there are matters of abuse and neglect. The federal government inspects nursing homes to address the overall care of residents, but cannot effectively address individual patient needs and concerns. If you have a relative in a nursing home who is suffering from abuse or neglect, you may need to contact a lawyer to address your specific concerns