Study on fires: Nursing homes safe

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

Despite harsh criticisms of fire safety in nursing homes nationwide, a federal study published last month noted that all 44 licensed institutions in Nevada had automatic sprinklers, which proved invaluable in a local fire on Monday.

Sprinklers doused a small fire in a room at a Las Vegas nursing home on Monday, Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach said. One patient, who was being treated with oxygen, along with seven other residents of the home were taken to a local hospital as a precaution. There were no other injuries.

It is Nevada's consistent use of sprinklers combined with vigilant oversight of the fire safety measures taken by nursing homes that helped the state rank highly for its fire safety efforts in a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Interestingly, one way Nevada impressed the GAO was by the high number of poor marks given to licensed institutions by watchdog organizations, evidence that the state takes fire safety seriously and considers even the smallest infraction -- such as failing to sign a form -- reason to cite a deficiency.

Nevada ranked fifth in the country with North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Utah for the number of fire safety deficiencies reported in licensed institutions, according to the GAO's report.

The Government Accountability Office discovered that each state does its nursing home surveys differently, Walter O'Chinko of the Washington, D.C., office said.

For example, while Nevada reported 93.2 percent of its homes with fire safety violations, Iowa had a 78 percent rate. Yet Iowa had many older homes that should have been closed, the report noted.

"Iowa had lots of homes that should have been shut down," O'Chinko said.

All Nevada nursing homes have been constructed with fire protections built in, state and industry experts say.

In Southern Nevada all nursing homes are inspected at least once a year and state surveyors make note of deficiencies as minor as a glitch noted in a patient's chart, said Lisa Jones of the state Bureau of Licensure and Certification's Las Vegas office.

When it comes to fire protection, most of the state's nursing home violations are for minor infractions, Jones said, adding that the most serious incident in Southern Nevada occurred in December 2003.

That's when Henderson Healthcare Center reported a fire after a resident tried smoking in bed while being treated with oxygen. The blaze was confined to the man's bed and his roommate tried to put the flames out. The smoker died as a result of the fire, Jones said.

A state surveyor had seen the fire on local television news and went to the nursing home at 1180 E. Lake Mead Parkway on her way to the office and reviewed how the center's administrators handled patients who smoke, Jones said.

Because federal law requires nursing homes to consider how to control each patient's personal behavior so it doesn't endanger others without taking away basic human rights, an individual plan is drawn up for each resident, Jones said.

In the Henderson Healthcare case, the center had assessed the patient and had a written plan. However, a family member or friend smuggled smoking supplies in to him.

The nursing home was not cited by the state for that incident, although an annual state inspection found the institution lacking in other aspects.

"It's a bad outcome and a bad event, but the facility was not cited," Jones said. "They did everything they could have done under the circumstance."

There have been no nursing home licenses revoked in Southern Nevada since Jones joined the bureau in 1990, she said. Most homes in the Las Vegas Valley have corporate owners who contribute enough resources to keep the institutions up to standard.

That's not the case in many other states. The recent GAO report was spurred by two deadly fires in 2003 -- one in Hartford, Conn., and the other in Nashville, Tenn. Those two blazes killed a total of 31 residents. The two institutions were old and did not have fire alarms or sprinklers, fire investigators said.

Charles Perry, executive director of the Nevada Health Care Association, said that the GAO report centered on the Connecticut and Tennessee nursing homes because neither of them had any fire protection.

"Every single licensed nursing home in this state has fire protection," Perry said.

Henderson Healthcare consists of a two-story building that is fire resistant and has alarms, smoke detectors and fire sprinklers, Perry said.

The GAO reported that currently no federal requirements exist calling for nursing homes to have sprinklers or smoke detectors in every room, this despite an estimated 2,300 fires in the nation's 16,300 nursing homes each year.

The nation's 1.5 million nursing home residents are vulnerable to fire as they often cannot escape because of their physical or mental impairments, the report said.

The GAO report called for listing fire safety deficiencies along with health care quality, building conditions and patient safety in publicly available survey reports. It also recommended standardized fire inspections nationwide.

Monday's fire -- at the Vegas Valley Convalescence Home on the 2900 block of Casa Vegas Street near the intersection of Maryland Parkway and Vegas Valley Drive -- is just one example of the effectiveness of a solid fire safety program.

About 40 firefighters responded to that fire, that was confined to a room that was being remodeled. The blaze was extinguished within minutes, Leinbach said.

To be on the safe side, 42 patients at the complex were moved to another wing of the facility, Leinbach said. The fire caused about $15,000 in damage and was confined to one wing of the facility, investigators determined.

Fire investigators are still looking into what caused the fire, but there were no other injuries reported.