Illinois Citizens for Better Care

12/22/2016

An excellent piece in today's Tribune about the on-going problems at a south suburban facility. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-bria-river-oaks-nursing-home-met-story.html

Two social workers allege they were fired from a suburban nursing home after refusing to fabricate medical records related to incidents of patient abuse, according to their pending lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.

07/08/2016

The Alzheimer's Association has asked us to remind you to take five minutes to participate in their annual survey. ICBC worked closely with them on several issues discussed in the survey. We want to help them however we can. Deadline is Friday, July 15. How about doing it now? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WB5S32C

Web survey powered by SurveyMonkey.com. Create your own online survey now with SurveyMonkey's expert certified FREE templates.

04/21/2016

THANK YOU ALL. This is an update on HB 5601, the bill that would have banned anonymous nursing home complaints. The bill is dead. The sponsor decided not to even call it for a vote. Not because he suddenly agreed it was a terrible idea, but because there was so much blowback from individuals and organizations who understood what a bad idea this was.
So thanks to all of you who called their representatives to oppose this bill, and asked others to do the same. Your calls absolutely made a difference.

04/15/2016

The Illinois House is considering HB 5601, a bill that would prevent Public Health from investigating anonymous complaints against nursing homes. Residents and their family members sometimes file anonymously for fear of retaliation. If you think being able to complain anonymously is an important protection for residents, please call your state representative first thing tomorrow to ask them to vote NO on the bill. The vote could happen any time, so please do not delay.
You can read more about HB 5601 here: http://m.sj-r.com/news/20160414/bill-would-ban-anonymous-complaints-against-nursing-homes
If you want a fact sheet on the bill, e-mail us at icbc@core.com
For your representative's phone number, go to http://www.ilga.gov/house/ and click on his/her name. Use the Springfield office number. And please share this post.
Thank you.

10/21/2015

Wendy guest-taught the Columbia College investigative journalism class again today. What a lovely bunch. Each is assigned a one-star nursing home to research and write a story about.
The questions always include at least one that takes you aback, until you realize it's because they need somebody to make explicit (for the story) what seems ridiculously obvious. This time it was: Is an $1100 fine for failing to provide necessary care for a resident who, as a result, is repeatedly hospitalized and eventually dies, meaningful? Well, the legal fees when they appealed the fine, probably were.
Forgot to get a picture of the class, but did remember to bake them blueberry muffins.

06/01/2015

This is wonderful news. Jamie Freschi is the new Illinois nursing home resident ombudsman. Jamie has been doing a first-rate job as the Springfield-area ombudsman. Being based in Springfield has meant she has been doing legislative advocacy -- doing it with intelligence and energy -- in addition to her other responsibilities. Jamie has the right background, experience, abilities, and attitude to make the ombudsman a real force in pushing for good nursing home care in Illinois. Bravo to Director John Holton for this excellent choice. And welcome, Jamie.

02/20/2015

There was a fire Thursday at the Ballard nursing home in Park Ridge. Because the facility had sprinklers, the fire was contained to a single room, and did not realize its potential of killing scores of residents and other people.

The fire chief "credited the fire sprinkler system installed in the building several years ago with containing and extinguishing the fire. It did not spread beyond the unit in which it started, he said.

'I would hate to think what would have happened if there wasn't a sprinkler there,'" the fire chief said.

Illinois does not require all nursing homes to have sprinklers. When Eli Pick, עליו השלום, owned Ballard, he decided to install sprinklers because it was the responsible thing to do. He was right.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/park-ridge/news/ct-prh-nursing-home-fire-tl-0226-20150219-story.html

Four people were taken to area hospitals after a small fire broke out Thursday morning inside a nursing facility near Park Ridge .

02/19/2015

Could be misreading the Governor's budget proposal, but it appears that they have left the money to implement mandated nursing home reform, intact.

02/19/2015

Today Wendy taught Wendy Netter Epstein's class in Health Care Policy and the Law, at DePaul Law School. A very nice bunch. No such thing as too many Wendys. Wendies? Not a problem often encountered.

02/13/2015

"Clozapine is not a commonly prescribed drug. But while Reinstein was allegedly soliciting kickbacks, he had more than half of his patients on it, according to the government. At one nursing home, he had prescribed the medication to 300 of its 400 residents, the lawsuit alleged."

A suspended doctor pleaded guilty Friday to a felony charge of taking kickbacks and other benefits from a pharmaceutical company to prescribe its risky antipsychotic drug for thousands of his patients.

02/11/2015

ICBC is moving tomorrow to 1 North LaSalle. We have a built-in bookcase in our current office, but none in the new one. If you have (or know somebody who has) one or two small office bookcases, or one medium one, you are interested in donating, we could use it/them

Anybody interested can e-mail us at icbc@core.com