In two separate incidences, The California Department of public Health has fined Alamitos West Health Care Center a total of $120,000, the maximum allowable amount, for deficient patient care. In one of the cases, the inadequacies in patient care were a “direct proximate cause of death” for an 82 year old woman on Christmas day, 2008. In the other case, the circumstances were similar, but the patient was rushed to the emergency room and did not die.
Alamitos West Health Care Center, which shares a campus with Katella Senior Living Community, is located at 3902 Katella Avenue, Los Alamitos. The facility, which claims to be “a well-respected long term care and rehabilitation facility”, is owned by a Minnesota company. The Goodman Group is a private company located in Chaska, Minnesota and includes the following on their web site: “Our mission is to create and manage living environments that emphasize quality of life and enable residents and staff to achieve an optimum level of well-being.”
Your Editors contacted both the company headquarters and the facility in Los Alamitos. Company/facility officials would not comment and referred all questions to their public relations consultant in Sacramento. The consultant, Betsy Hite, said the company filed an appeal, but she was unable to explain what, if any, aspect of the state’s findings would be contested.
Ralph Montano, spokesperson for the Department of Public Health said the facility has two options to appeal the citation. One option is a court hearing, which would be open to the public and the other, called a citation review conference, would be closed to the public. In either situation, the family of the victim could be present and make a statement, if they choose to do so. He said the facility has requested a citation review conference, but the date has not yet been set.
In response to our question about the case where the patient died and the fine was $100,000, the company’s public relations consultant said “This is the first time that anything like this, any sort of a citation anywhere near this magnitude has been issued to Alamitos West.” When your Editors pointed out that there was in fact another very similar case, during the same time frame, she said she was not aware of the other case. Based on our review of the state’s reports for both cases and the state’s conclusions, it appears that the only difference between the two cases is that one of the patients survived and the other did not. The only difference in the state’s conclusions is the reference to the death in one of the two cases. The failures in patient care for both cases occurred during November and December of last year.
In both of the cases for which the facility was fined, the patients suffered severe dehydration which resulted in emergency room hospitalizations. The state cited the facility for failing to document proper monitoring of the patients’ fluid intake and output, among other deficiencies. Both patients were not receiving adequate fluids and became dehydrated which led to other complications, and in one case, death.
In the case of the woman who died as a result of the inadequate care, the state’s findings reported “The facility failed to ensure Patient A, who had a history of dehydration did not become dehydrated by failing to: 1. Assess Patient A’s fluid needs, 2. Consistently assessing the urine in Patient A’s urinary drainage bags, 3. Notify the physician regarding Patient A’s low fluid intake, Patient A’s urine being dark amber in color on 12/12/08, and Patient A being difficult to wake up the day prior to transfer to the acute hospital, 4. Evaluate Patient A’s intake and output at least weekly. These violations presented either imminent danger that death or serious harm or substantial probability that death or serious physical harm to the patient would result there from and were a direct proximate cause of Patient A’s death.”
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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