Nursing home under new management

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September 14, 2012

Nursing home under new management

Christin Coyne Weatherford Democrat The Weatherford Democrat Fri Sep 14, 2012, 07:31 AM CDT

WEATHERFORD —

Though Crescent Senior Care is currently facing a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a 2010 incident, current management of the nursing and assisted living facility said they want the community to know the facility has new operators and improvements have been ongoing.

Last month the family of a former resident filed a wrongful death lawsuit in district court in Parker County, alleging the nursing home failed to administer a 79-year-old woman her prescribed medication, resulting in her death.

As they were not operating the facility at the time, current administration did not want to comment on the lawsuit but said the nursing home is a different place than when they began managing Crescent Senior Care earlier this year.

Kelly Bailey, regional director for the facility, said though the property still has the same owner, leasing and operating arrangements have changed, and a new management team took over operations at the facility on March 31.

Since then, the new operators have made significant improvement to the facility and services offered and are proud of what they’ve accomplished, according to Bailey.

Surveys of the facility since the new management took over have been better than the facility has had since 2002, as well, Bailey said.

The facility’s staffing level is 100 percent appropriate to provide care for facility’s current 84 residents, according to Bailey. “We staff as good or better than most other nursing facilities.”

According to the facility, recent changes include hiring about 90 percent new administrative staff, including a new nursing director and dietary manager.

Some physical improvements to the facility include replacing all the major equipment in the kitchen and replacing the roof and air-conditioning units, the facility’s administrator Douglas Meharry said.

They are now offering a feeding room to help residents who may need additional assistance at meal times.

They also hold weekly meetings on issues such as weight management, according to Bailey, who said they’ve recently been able to meet the goal of no weight loss.

One new program they are excited about is a restorative nursing program they’ve recently implemented to help residents maintain their ability to function while at Crescent Senior Care, Bailey said.

The morale of the facility has gone up since the adminstrative changes, according to Meharry, who said he believes that happy employees lead to happy residents.