The State of Maryland Office of Health Care Quality Said the Conditions at SagePoint Nursing and Rehabilitation Center Posed Immediate and Serious Jeopardy to the Health and Safety of Their Residents
The State of Maryland Office of Health Care Quality sent the following letter via email to SagePoint Nursing and Rehabilitation Center Administrator, Ms. Andrea Dwyer:
Dear Ms. Dwyer
Beginning April 21, 2020 and through May 6, 2020, a survey was conducted at your facility (SagePoint Nursing and Rehabilitation Center) by the Office of Health Care Quality to determine if your facility was in compliance with State regulations. This survey found that your facility was not in substantial compliance with the State regulations. In fact, conditions at your facility posed immediate and serious jeopardy to the health and safety of your residents.
Your facility failed to implement an effective infection control program in accordance with standards of care and the guidelines provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and Maryland Department of Health (MOH) during a declared State of emergency and healthcare pandemic. The deficiencies include failure to obtain critical lab results timely, failure to use appropriate hand hygiene, failure to appropriately use personal protective equipment (PPE), and failure to cohort residents with suspected or known COVID-19.
Based upon the deficiencies cited at your facility, OHCQ will be imposing a daily Civil Money Penalty (CMP) of $10,000 per day for widespread deficiencies, beginning March 30, 2020, and continuing until the facility regains substantial compliance with the State regulations.
Based on the seriousness of these findings, it is imperative that you immediately determine the measures that are necessary to correct these deficient practices, what systemic changes you will develop to ensure that this does not happen again, and what quality improvement process will be implemented to oversee the system.
The statement of deficiencies related to this survey will be issued in the next few days. The accompanying cover letter will include additional details and further instructions. lf you have any questions at this time, contact David Cherry, Deputy Director of Long Term Care at 410-402-8101 or via email at [email protected]
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On May 7 at 11:10 am, the SagePoint Nursing and Rehabilitation Center posted the following statement on their website:
Statement Regarding Letter to Sagepoint from The Office of Healthcare Quality:
“We strongly disagree with the findings contained in the letter, and we will be disputing them directly to the Office of Health Care Quality (OHCQ), which is how this oversight process is supposed to work. We feel it would be inappropriate and highly irregular to respond to last night’s letter in the media before we have followed the proper process, as mandated by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and OHCQ. It should be noted that OHCQ has informed Sagepoint that all of the concerns found during their inspections have been successfully resolved.”
Sagepoint Letter, May 6, 2020 by WJZ on Scribd
