Fw: Arc and Fining Our Way to Quality

[Guest guest]

Please do contact Tony at the Arc of Illinois to express your thoughts.

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...

Arc and Fining Our Way to Quality

The Arc of Illinois

December 22, 2010

Leaders in The Arc:

We met once again with the Governor's staff to discuss safeguards in ICFDD's and

Child Care Institutions. These meetings are hard for me to participate in

because they are about trying to make institutions more accountable. I

appreciate that the Governor and his team want to raise the bar but trying to

fix a broken system is not the way. Rather we need to rebalance and shift to

home and community based supports. This panel is talking about imposing a new

fine system for ICFDDs and Child Care Institutions those fines will probably

find their way into the community system. Im not convinced we are going to fine

our way to quality.

I would very much like to hear your thoughts on this topic. Send me your ideas.

Story from the Chicago follows.

Tony auski

The Arc of Illinois

815-464-1832

State nursing-home panel weighs safeguards for disabled kids

Quinn's task force considers raising fines, limiting admissions to troubled

facilities

By S. Hopkins and Sam Roe, Tribune reporters

11:07 PM CST, December 21, 2010Stepping up their push to increase safeguards for

children with disabilities, state officials and local advocates on Tuesday

discussed increasing fines and limiting admissions for facilities that

repeatedly neglect residents with developmental issues.

" You would start regulating yourself if you knew that no more business was going

to come in the door until you cleaned up your act, " said Eileen Durkin,

president and CEO of Neumann Family Services.

The panel assembled by Gov. Pat Quinn is preparing legislation after a Tribune

investigation that documented a series of violations and deaths over 10 years at

a North Side nursing facility. Gelder, Quinn's senior health policy

adviser, is leading the effort and said legislation is expected as early as

March.

Facilities for people with disabilities were left out of sweeping nursing-home

reforms the legislature passed this year. The panel is reviewing those laws to

determine how they could apply to such homes.

It's also considering new ideas, such as limiting admissions at troubled

facilities and raising fines when facility employees mislead state

investigators. On Tuesday, the Tribune reported that facilities caring for

people with disabilities have escaped serious penalties despite the deaths of

children on their watch.

" There's got to be, to me, a sort of two-way punishment, " said Durkin, whose

organization provides programs to disabled people. " One is a pretty hefty fine,

and the other is until all the things are cured you can't bring more people into

the facility. "

The panel is considering adding a new penalty in cases where a facility is found

to have caused a death, which state officials and advocates said also would

provide valuable information to the public.

" From the public's perspective, in terms of where you want your child, for

example, identifying deaths is a very big deal, " said Meltzer, executive

director of Illinois Citizens for Better Care.

But Bibo of the Center for Developmental Disabilities Advocacy and

Community Supports, which represents facilities for people with disabilities,

said that although fines might need to be raised, state officials haven't taken

advantage of current enforcement measures.

" The department has not used the tools at its disposal, " Bibo said.

State officials disputed that and said the state needs strong authority to

ensure that homes fulfill their responsibilities.

" We want to raise the bar, " Gelder said. " We have a double approach that we hope

will give the nursing home owners the message that they've got to run facilities

that meet our standards and will give the state the enforcement mechanism and

the penalties to make sure that they do. "

jahopkins@...

sroe@...

Copyright 2010, Chicago Tribune

www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-disabled-kids-meeting-20101221,0,2135115.st\

ory

chicagotribune.com

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