Oregon Is Naming and Shaming Problematic Senior Care Facilities

The Oregon Department of Human Services has published a new website listing some of the state’s most problematic long-term care facilities—what an agency director described as places your parents might want to avoid.

While the amount of new information is limited, it’s still a welcome move toward transparency for an agency that has long faced criticism for not doing enough to publicize problems at these facilities, which are often for profit and largely government financed.

Corissa Neufeldt, the agency’s new deputy director of safety, announced the new changes last week in a meeting with advocates. She mused about what Oregonians might potentially say about the list: “Here are the facilities I might want to think twice about before I admit my family member or myself,” she said.

The agency also appears to be amping up enforcement. “In the past—following a survey or a licensing complaint—we may have issued civil penalties, but we weren’t necessarily issuing conditions to compel that compliance,” Neufeldt added.

The facilities’ lobbying group, Oregon Health Care Association, praised the new website. “This is important information that consumers can use in making choices for themselves and family members,” said spokeswoman Rosie Ward.

The website lists facilities with “conditions,” which often mean that the state has restricted new admissions until the problems are sorted out. And it lists six facilities that are so problematic that they’ve earned ongoing “additional oversight.”

To get on the list, facilities have to rack up enough serious violations. Here’s the six that earned the dubious distinction, with examples of recent problems gleaned from inspection reports:

Brookdale Geary Street Memory Care (Albany): Several residents suffered serious falls, and inspectors discovered a technician had given a resident the wrong type of insulin.

Maple Grove Memory Care (Portland): Failure to adequately address several residents’ rapid and potentially dangerous weight loss.

Sunnyside Meadows (Happy Valley): Staff wasn’t given required training, and inspectors uncovered instances of residents not being given assistance eating or bathing.

Hearthstone Nursing and Rehabilitation Center (Medford): A resident had a leg amputated after the facility delayed caring for an infected wound.

Rawlin at Riverbend (Springfield): Staff wasn’t consistently monitoring call lights, which go on when residents ask for help. Inspectors discovered the system was broken.

Wildflower Lodge (La Grande): Staff didn’t take “reasonable precautions” to prevent a resident, who had a history of abuse, from threatening other residents.