The state of Maryland has revoked the certificates of 157 nursing assistants after health officials found that a state employee awarded the medical documents to those who didn’t apply or didn’t meet minimum standards for the positions.
And a new audit also revealed that more than half of all Maryland assisted-living facilities and more than three-fourths of facilities for the disabled were not inspected during fiscal 2010.
Those findings, the product of multiple investigations by state auditors, are a black eye for health departments that receive millions of dollars in public funding to monitor physicians, nurses and assisted-living centers across Maryland.
“Obviously, these findings are important,” said Legislative Auditor Bruce Myers, who added the state still lacks safeguards to prevent similar mishaps. “We’ve been saying this for years.”
State investigators found that 53 percent of Maryland’s 1,367 licensed assisted-living facilities and 76 percent of the state’s 201 centers for the disabled had not been inspected for patient care and safety in fiscal 2010.
Citing layoffs, staff reductions and furloughs, the Office of Health Care Quality said it would be unable to meet the legally required standards without additional workers.
“In order to complete the mandated surveys, OHCQ will need an additional 35 surveyors,” said a department response to the report.
In 2009, the inspector general for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene concluded that a state employee had fraudulently issued 19 nursing certificates. However, in newly released findings, health officials disclosed more than eight times that many faulty certificates had been issued.
“I am confident that the things we have put in place will afford us a level of confidence to ensure that this doesn’t happen again,” Nancy Adams, president of the Maryland Board of Nursing, told The Washington Examiner.
Maryland health officials would not identify the employee in question, saying it was a personnel matter. But the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported the incident to Attorney General Douglas Gansler and fired the employee.
The nursing assistants who improperly received the certificates are listed at mbon.org/main.php?v=norm&p=0&c=null-void.html. On the Web site, the nursing board orders the individuals to “cease practice immediately.”
