Kern Valley Healthcare District update: Tracy Brown and three contractors leave unexpectedly

As we have already reported, on Friday July 24, Tracy Brown, and three other contractors left the KVHD skilled nursing facility, without notice, according to hospital CEO, Tim Mcglew.

Tracy Brown, who was contracted as the Nursing Home Administrator, Fidel Morgadez, who was contracted for medical SNF medical records services, Beth Clark RN, and Nolan Stewart contracted for SNF recreational services, left together a week ago Friday, July 24.

Because of the sudden departure of the contractors, with no notification to administration or staff in the nursing center, the CEO said he has reported the incident.

"In response to your questions, the incident has been reported as required to the appropriate agency"

In an email response, the CEO stated he is also gathering information on other possible types of recourse regarding the abandonment of the nursing center.

Although originally reported that the four were contracted under the company name Quality Healthcare Asset Management, I have been corrected by KVHD that they all were contracted individually and not through the company.

As I had been researching the SNF administrator, Tracy Brown, the company, Quality Healthcare Asset Management, contained Brown's services and credentials as well as the other contractors named above.

A search through the California Secretary of State's website, showed that Quality Healthcare Asset Management became a limited liability company in June of 2008, one month after Tracy Brown and the other contractors signed on in May 2008 with the KVHD SNF.

Brown, originally arrived in 2007, with Sycamore Asset Management, and worked under their contract for year when the company parted ways with the hospital.

Brown then signed on separately with KVHD along with the three contractors, in May of 2008.

There are more questions regarding these contracts and hopefully I can get some answers at the monthly board meeting, this Wed. Aug. 5, at 5:30 pm in the hospital cafeteria.

Also, I reported that the Director of Nursing, Jeanette Maker, left on Friday along with Brown and the other contractors. Maker had also given her notice that she would be leaving in August.

According to the CEO's secretary, when asked if Maker was a part of Tracy Brown's "group," she said she believed Maker was converted from traveling nurse to employee. She wasn't completely sure and promised to get the exact information.

Although Maker left the same time as Brown, she was reported to have returned to work on Monday July 27, but left again due to illness.

There are many more questions which need to be answered regarding this situation, and I will update as more information comes in.

The contracts are shown below, click on each to open and read.














Next up: It's the monthly board meeting time again...a preview

KVHD skilled nursing facility Update: Management company gone; hospital running nursing center for first time in 2 years

The hospital takes over the SNF:

Since it is the weekend, and getting quotes from the Kern Valley Healthcare District administration may not be possible, so I thought I would just go and take a look for myself.

Pictured here: myself

As the last of the management companies that were contracted by the

hospital to run the skilled nursing facility, left the premises on Friday, rather quickly, and from what I understand, unexpectedly.

But if you can build it, (at least partially) then you should be able to run it.

I looked around at the walls as remnants of the former management company still hung there and were maybe overlooked when they departed on July 24.

As I went into the building, the halls were quiet except for the rattle of pills and the murmur of conversation

among the residents.

It was in the evening after dinner when I arrived to find a cordial staff who were smiling and going about their business.

I asked for some confirmation, that the former management company run by Tracy Brown had indeed left.

The nurse I spoke with told me Brown was gone along with her staff, Nolan, Fidel, Beth, and the Director of Nursing, Jeanette Maker. She said that was all she knew about it.

I asked how the sudden transition went, and she said, "we're doing fine, the place is running just fine."

She said, "we have people in place," (as the records indicated), and "we're doing well."

I remarked, "so the SNF is back in the hands of the hospital." The nurse smiled and nodded, indicating approval, maybe even pride.

I was welcomed in the unit with a warm greeting, something that hasn't happened to me there in more than 2 years.

Before I left, I spoke to a few residents who were engaged in some interesting conversation. I interrupted them to introduce myself and say hello.

I was told sweetly, "I don't know who you are, but we were talking here."

Gosh, I love straightforward people...

UPDATED:Breaking News: KVHD nursing home consultant, says 7/24/2009 her last day as she leaves suddenly

In an email received by me, and broadcast to others around the valley, including board members, Tracy Brown, Consultant to the nursing facility, says she has concluded her time with the Kern Valley Heatlhcare District.

(UPDATE: I put out several calls and was able to get a confirmation from KVHD Chairwoman of the Board, Kathryn Knight, that indeed Tracy Brown left the hospital.

Knight said she received a phone call from the new CEO, Tim McGlew, yesterday, Friday, 7/24/09, indicating that Tracy Brown had departed the skilled nursing facility along with her employees.

"She walked out and took all of her people with her," Knight said she was told.

However, Knight said, that the new administrators were getting ready to begin running the skilled nursing facility, as Brown had already given her resignation to the board.

Brown had initially said that she was going to stay until the end of August.

In her email, Brown suggests the new administration begin to prepare for the state and federal survey, and that she has left everything in the nursing center in order.

Knight had no further information or comment to give at this time.

More updates coming soon as we are waiting on responses.)

Brown, who had been consulting with the facility under Sycamore Management, May 2007 until May 2008, when she was brought in by the district as her own separate contractor, called Quality Healthcare Asset Management for the last year.

In her email, Brown states she has not abandoned the facility, as she accuses new CEO, Tim McGlew of telling the staff.

Another email is included from Human resources asking Brown to "mail the mailbox key as soon as possible."

Currently, I only have this series of emails from Tracy Brown and will have to follow up with others named in the correspondence to respond.

Sycamore was brought in during May of 2007, when the KVHD nursing facility was in jeopardy of being closed due to mismanagement.

The contract with Sycamore was signed by former CEO, Pam Ott, and then KVHD Board Chairman, Brad Armstrong, with Sycamore owner, Don Ermel Doyle.

Doyle, said in 2007, after I asked him how he was contacted by the hospital, and he told me he had seen the "immediate jeopardy" with intent to close notice in the Bakersfield Californian, and decided to attend a meeting.

He said after the meeting he gave Ott his card, and a few weeks later the contract was signed.

After government agencies flooded the SNF, and a civil lawsuit was threatening Pam Ott, who had resigned but stayed on for another thirty, dirty, days, the new management company stepped aboard. (See Ott's management Company; QAB interview with Ott)

In one year costs from the contract with Sycamore soared to almost two million dollars.

Brown, who was brought in by Sycamore initially, eventually was given the reins to the SNF where she has been consulting as a Nursing Home Administrator since May of 2008 on her own, under her own company title, Quality Healthcare Asset Management, LLC.

The nursing home administrator recently gave her notice to terminate her contract with the hospital and she said she would be staying on for 90 days, which would have ended in August.

According to the email I received, she has seemingly decided to leave immediately.

"Considering when I arrived, and since my tenure the facility was on IJ (2xs), Focus status, inadequate staffing and training, on-going scrutiny from the community, low census, de-certification and admission freeze; we have done quite well, in the past 2 1/2 years (May 2007-current). You will now need to prepare for your next survey process and on-going issues that arise. Again, please feel free to contact us on a contractual basis, should the need arise, for a periodic review. Please have my final invoice paid in a timely manner, or legal recourse will be pursued, considering all prior issues. Please note this is the last of my association with KVHD- July 24, 2009."

The new CEO, Tim McGlew, has experience both in long term care and hospital administration. He was expected to take over the duties of the skilled nursing side once Brown left.

We will follow up and find out about the transition as soon as people are available for comment.

This is just one side of the picture at the moment as we have not had a chance to talk to anyone at the district as of yet.

What we know right now, is that Tracy Brown, in an email, states that she has left KVHD as of July 24, 2009.

Give us all a break KVHD: that's not an investigation, this is an investigation...

KVHD, former CEO, Rick Carter states in documents from February of 2009, that a report of neglect in the skilled nursing facility, was "unsubstantiated." But the KVHD investigation proves not to be so substantial:

On 11/23/08 two CNA's report to work at the KVHD skilled nursing facility and and say they find residents wet, skin rashes, a wound, and alarms not on that morning.

After making rounds they wrote up a handwritten report and gave it to the RN and LVN in charge of the SNF overnight. They both say they wrote a handwritten report, signed and dated it.

The RN and LVN are traveling nurses, who the two aides, say they gave their report to that morning.

Both CNA's who filed this report have been fired. Both have had complaints filed with the state board of nursing after their terminations.

Hospital records state that the nurses who were in charge of the SNF at the time of the report, could not be found to add anything to the hospital's own little investigation...

I just got off the phone with them.

I forgot to ask them if their licenses were under investigation too.

It took no time at all to find them and the hospital cannot say without looking ridiculous, that they couldn't have done it themselves.

I imagine the hospital has the excuse the employees had left and therefore could not be investigated by the hospital. But they would've been witnesses not the subject of the investigation.

(See stories below, "employees fighting back")

Updated/Corrected: SNF employees fighting back: "They knew about it."

More information/New documents:

Two employees say they wrote up this report of the conditions found on the morning of November, 23, 2008 in Hall 3 of the KVHD skilled nursing facility and turned the handwritten and signed document to the nurses in charge.

They say they turned the document into two traveling nurses who quit the hospital a month after the incident.

And they say that both nurses, LVN Sonjay, and RN, Reno, told them that they had submitted the report to the DON and Tracy Brown, the Nursing Home Administrator, whose company, Quality Healthcare, took over after Sycamore Asset Management in 2008.

The employees say that they trust the two nurses did what they said they did. "Sonjay and Reno were the best thing that happened to that unit, but they couldn't handle it working there."

The employees were told they didn't have to do anything more by Reno, it was all taken care of was their understanding they said. The said they asked and were reassured at least three times.

But when they saw that the aide the above report refers to, come to work after the incident, they became suspicious and scared.

"When she was back on the floor, we were petrified we were going to be fired," she said. "If we had done what she had done we would've been escorted off the property."

They said they took their concerns again back to Reno, who told them the report was made and they could go back to work.

"We were told just go back to work." She said Reno told her he couldn't tell her anything about the nurse because it was private employee information.
(At this hospital? Right Chet?)

The two traveling nurses quit and moved somewhere in California.

Then in Feb. 2009, one aide said she found herself in a quandary as to what to do after she asked Tracy Brown and Human Resources manager, Debra Hoffman, about the status of the report.

The two administrators told her they had never heard about it and blamed the aide for not telling them, the aide claims. She was suspended for not reporting and making a "smart" comment, and they said in the HR report shown below, the hospital, would investigate.

In the second HR report, they said they investigated, but were unable to reach the nurses who the aides say they submitted their report to, Reno and Sonjay. (documents below)

One of the aides was able to find Sonjay and spoke to her after she was suspended regarding the issue of the report. She said Sonjay told her that it had been reported to the administrator and DON.

The first aide was fired for not reporting the incident to the administrator and not on a correct filing form. But the in house investigation conducted (?) lead the administrators to call the aide's report of neglect, "unsubstantiated."

So, the aide was terminated for not properly filing a report about an incident which they said they could not substantiate or prove. And the documents state they could not reach the nurses who the aides say took the report. (Not much of an investigation)

The employee said she saw the dates were off on the form HR put in front of her to sign during her termination ceremony. And the information, she said, was also not correct. She refused to sign. Which is indicated on the document shown below.

On the same day the first mandated reporter was suspended, Feb. 13, 2009, the second aide said she was called in and asked to fill out the state reporting form at 7 pm. She filled it out, she said, because she thought if she didn't she would lose her job.

It's not completely clear right now when and if the report was ever filed with the Department of Health Services. Or if the SNF and HR still claim it was not a substantiated incident.

And that is one of the big problems with self reporting facilities. Especially, after all the investigations at KVHD, wouldn't it look better if it was just handled in house? Department of Health Services or the Ombudsman don't have to know. (Right Pam, that's how it's done?)

The ultimate responsibility to assure the initial report goes to the proper authorities falls to the administrator.

What makes this claim so interesting is the hospital's documentation doesn't make sense and looks highly suspicious.

Both of the mandated reporters have been terminated, but now, suddenly, after four months, a complaint against the first aide's nursing license was filed with the nursing board, on June 24, regarding not reporting the incident or non incident whichever. It seems HR, Rick Carter, and Tracy Brown have used both scenarios to justify their actions according to the documents.

The letter from the state nursing board the aide received states the complaint comes from "KVHD." (Trying to find out where this was generated from after the employee has been gone four months.)

The first aide fired on Feb. 23 of this year after going up the truncated chain of command to former, CEO, Rick Carter. Though there is confusion about the chain between the employee handbook, the recent explanation by KVHD board counsel, Scott Nave, who said it falls back to the personnel policy.
(termination greivance policy. Click to open)

Both employees just want their jobs back, their names cleared, and any false complaints dropped. And they also want to make sure the new administration hears about what they say, "has been going on."

The aides say they have spoken with an attorney and the EEOC, and they said both found the district claims unbelievable or even irrational.

But the aides want to stick with the district, but not in the nursing center, because they believe they are being retaliated against because they made a negative report which they think was being buried by the SNF administrators.

Tracy Brown, Nursing Home Administrator, for the SNF at the July board meeting. Though Brown has resigned, controversy begins to swirl around, as employees are fighting back after terminations. But the administrator has been controversial as her management company contracted for $240K and traveling nurses costs skyrocketed. More to come...

Click on documents to open and read.

June KVHD board meeting: new CEO

I'm just getting a chance to watch the video from the last board meeting and it's really interesting. Here have some popcorn.
The chairwoman, Kay Knight, introduced our new CEO, Tim Mcglew, (sorry if the name is most likely misspelled. I haven't seen the spelling.) who gave a short introduction telling the community he wants to meet us and hear from us.
The new CEO, who has background in nursing facilities and large hospitals, was most impressive I thought that night.
During a period of questioning about a somewhat "superfluos" subject brought up by bored member, Huevos Maximos, (Jamison call himself: see the Scandalous Bob Jamison), the board was wrangling with the insipid but annoying radio star, and the CEO actually got up and clarified the issue.
I rewound the video several times to see such a sight as someone brave enough to take on the issues and actually provide a solution (even prior to his start date).
I felt this little feeling of hope after I heard him speak with knowledge and articulation.
But that soon dissipated as the "Should run a taco stand instead" CFO, Chet Beedle, began his run around the real issues with so many questions not asked of him. The board members have let this man run this hospital into the ground with hardly a word to him.
A few chuckles from friends, Jamison and Armstrong, lunchmates, and buddies, were all that was heard.
It seems the board has allowed Beedle's crimes and budget cuts to go without contention. No questions about the reports which include no breakdown or detail to actually understand.
We have overdue bills and outstanding balances, and a credit rating to match.
I've heard for four years now about the hospital financial problems caused by Robert Knight in 1999. Well, Beedle said we are going to be revisiting this scenario. But he gave himself a break, pointing out how that hasn't happened in ten years. OOOh. He even looked for confirmation from friend, Brad Armstrong.
Cal Mtg. is on it's way this August folks and Beedle, who calls himself a friend of the Mtg., has danced around this subject for six months. Will we have a hospital come September: if so, who will be running it?
Beedle said he wanted to retire here, but he makes little advance in any progress for the hospital to make money, and especially enough to satisfy the insatiable Cal Mtg.
Maybe he doesn't want to be known as a failure in finance and in employee retention and patient happiness; but you are Mr. Beedle.
Not only that you are a criminal who has been allowed to rough up anyone you like (see Beedle blogs). That power was given by the old board who sat and watched the SNF (skilled nursing facility) burn to the ground.
Yes, Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Jamison, you are still here and are seen at the hospital regularly meeting with the Beedle.
Remember all that you two board buddies said for years about micromanaging? Sleight of hand; it's been you two plus a few more we know about.
And tell me about the by-laws Huevos? I have a copy of the former by-laws which seem to be missing something, hmm, what is it? Maybe I'll ask you at the financial meeting this month.
But personally, maybe the community is frightened to come forward and ask the tough questions; but I'm not.
Oh, yes, Mr. Beedle, we can spend money any way you like if no one knows what you're doing. That is going to change.
Is it coinicidence that we have just enough money to pay our bond debt payment of 1.1 milion, added to the bond reserve we are not supposed to use?
The meeting also included a resignation by Tracy Brown whose company has been overseeing the SNF for more than a year.
Brown said: "I want to take the opportunity from everyone in the KRV for all your support on the skilled nursing unit on and during the survey process, and from my first day at the facility.
I regret to inform you that I had to submit my 90 day notice to terminate services as your on site administrator, but I do want you to know if I could ever be of assistance, either myself or of the organization I represent will always be available to you. You need only call and we'll be here at a moment's notice. Again, thank you."
This resignation came on the heels of the CFO announcement that they would have to cut cost in half in the SNF.
Beedle, who illegally hired both management companies, Sycamore and then Tracy Brown. The board in 2007, used the emergency clause in the district laws, to hire Sycamore without having to look at other management companies or options. We all know Sycamore made a bundle off this community and hospital.
Now Tracy Brown came in and it seems though she was paid quite a bit, she is not a favorite of Beedle, Armstrong, and Jamison. Well, they illegally brought her in without looking at other companies. (we will address this for sure)
So, why would they have a problem with her? Money. Are they resentful that she makes money they voted to pay her? (I mean Chet and our old friend Rick Carter and HR superstar, Debra Hoffman, all recieved nice raises ranging from 7 to 19%)
Beedle seems to think so. But he's made these fabulous decisions and continues to maintain a position at a failing facility.

Fire at will! All employees can be fired. Will our new CEO have the "huevos" to push out Beedle and bring in new financial oversight?
And will the board be willing to investigate the three amigos along with the practices in Human Resources?
I've asked for an investigation and I expect to get it.

Questions which should have been asked at the meeting

Beedle: Will three weeks be enough time to get more than $600,000 to pay the holders of the districts really "secure" bonds?
Why did the board and yourself give out big raises when your financials cite an unstable economy?
Did you know that government workers will be taking off the first Mondays and last Fridays to save money? And other government types are taking pay cuts and even giving money back. Why did this hospital throw money around like it was being printed in the back?
Armstrong: Why is it you never pulled an issue off of the "consent" agenda. These are not all "non" controversial items, in fact, there are many contracts that were not good choices.
Mr. Armstrong, did you try to fight to get Dr. Pormir and Debbie Hayes covered by the insurance company so they had a chance in court? And do you feel at all guilty about knowing that there were problems but doing nothing?
Mr. Jamison: Why are you even still here? Do you believe in if you can dish it out you better be able to take it? Are you still in touch with friend, Pam Ott?
Rest of the board: Why are you allowing known criminals to remain in the hospital?