Category: Health Care
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Blame the Nurses — or the Nursing-Home Profiteers?
by Jim Wright So, who’s the real culprit? Eighteen nurses were recently arrested at Colonial Heights Nursing Home, charged with elder abuse and falsification of records. Surely, there was wrongdoing here, but does the blame belong to 18 nurses only? In my experience as a nursing-home medical director, I’ve learned that sometimes the first “culprit”…
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Virginia’s Nursing Homes and the Courts
by James C. Sherlock Readers have stuck with me for a long time as I have reported on the dire state of many of Virginia’s nursing homes. Recently the employees of one of the worst have been charged with abuse and neglect in the death of a patient. Her suffering was what can only…
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Breaking – Colonial Heights Rehab and Nursing Center Closed to New Admissions
by James C. Sherlock This is the best nursing home news in this space in a long time. A phone call to the facility today confirmed that the infamous Colonial Heights Rehab and Nursing Center is closed to new applicants. This reporter is not sure of the driving force behind this specific action, but that…
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Congratulations Inova
by James C. Sherlock I asked the question in 2022 “Is Inova the best regional hospital system in America?“ We have an answer. Inova has recently been recognized by healthcare analyst firm Press Ganey as America’s Health System of the Year. That was hardly a surprise. Inova has been great for a very long time.…
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Medicaid Yet Again – Skyrocketing Costs of New Therapies
By James C. Sherlock The featured image above is from my friends at AARP. We continue to work together to improve Virginia nursing homes. Basic Medicaid and CHIP, which I support, are threatened by soaring costs. I have recommended bringing Medicaid expansion home to the states to fund to protect the basic program at…
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A Homework Assignment – Nursing Facility Neglect and Abuse
by James C. Sherlock I read two comments on my local Nextdoor blog this morning. They reminded me that most people know nothing about nursing homes or about what to do if they or their loved ones are abused or neglected. I urge readers to post the following as a public service on Nextdoor and…
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Medicaid – Again
by James C. Sherlock Featured image courtesy of Cato Institute. It is worth a close look by those who suggest there is no room for federal budget reductions. On the morning of Feb. 25th, I posted a column a week ago that asked whether Virginia should pay the full cost of Medicaid expansion. That same…
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General Assembly Upends Bill to Hold Virginia Nursing Homes Accountable
by James C. Sherlock Fish gotta swim. The General Assembly gotta do the bidding of the nursing home lobby. Patients be damned – literally. Consider the fate of House Bill 2253 in the 2025 General Assembly. As introduced, it would have empowered the Health Commissioner to impose serious sanctions on our worst nursing homes; but…
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Medicaid Expansion Costs in Virginia – Who Should Pay?
by James C. Sherlock Update Feb 26 at 13:02: See here for article on potential Medicaid cuts. Ronald Reagan was wrong, yet somewhere he is smiling. “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on…
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Do No Harm
By James C. Sherlock One translation of the Hippocratic Oath reads: “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is (harmful).” That will prove cold comfort to the thousands of Virginia patients subjected to unnecessary danger, pain,…
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A Conscious Veto of the Unconsious Bias Bill
By Derrick Max, Senator Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) and the Progressives in the General Assembly have again sent a bill to Governor Youngkin’s desk requiring doctors in Virginia to complete training in “unconscious bias and cultural competency.” Last year, when Governor Youngkin vetoed a similar bill, Sen. Locke took to X (formerly Twitter) to smear the Governor: “It…
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A Public Health Crisis in Central Virginia
by James C. Sherlock A terribly injured 33-year-old homeless male schizophrenic recently was found lying hidden in a church in Chesterfield County. He was discovered with multiple displaced fractures in the lower pubic bone, a break on the left side of the sacrum (base of the spine), a large amount of blood in his pelvis,…
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Staffing in Selected Nursing Homes in Virginia – a Graphic Comparison
by James C. Sherlock The featured graphic above and here is my attempt to produce an infographic without cartographer skills. It integrates a lot of information from different sources and internal calculations in an effort to show both: how nursing home staffing in Virginia varies; and how it has or has not complied with…
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A Rosetta Stone for Nursing Facility Articles
by James C. Sherlock I will continue to pursue the public health crisis that is Virginia’s worst nursing homes. I am quite aware that my articles on that subject are sometimes difficult to follow because I provide so much detail and data. I am attempting to make a case to Virginia officials to act…
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Too Many of Virginia’s Skilled Nursing Facilities Present a Public Health Problem
by James C. Sherlock In a recent 12-month period overlapping 2022 and 2023, almost 8,400 Medicare patients alone were admitted to a hospital directly from or within 30 days after discharge from one of Virginia’s 280+ skilled nursing facilities. We simply do not know how many eventually died as a proximate outcome of poor care…