Be sure to document! Nurse charged in death of H. R. McMaster Sr.

[NurseBlaq]

Nurse charged in death of H. R. McMaster Sr. at Cathedral Village

The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General on Thursday charged a licensed practical nurse with involuntary manslaughter in the April 13 death of Herbert R. McMaster Sr. in the nursing home at Cathedral Village, in the Upper Roxborough section of Philadelphia.

Christann S. Gainey, 30, was also charged with neglect of a care-dependent person and tampering with records for allegedly failing to provide appropriate care to McMaster, the father of former national security adviser H.R. McMaster Jr., after he fell in his room and hit his head, according to an eight-page criminal complaint.

The South Philadelphia resident then allegedly falsified records to make it seem as if she had completed the required neurological checks on McMaster, going so far as to mark one as done at 7:20 a.m. on April 13, 20 minutes after the 84-year-old was found dead in his wheelchair.

"I falsified that one," Gainey told Cathedral Village's assistant director of nursing, "because I didn't want the next nurse to have to do them," according to the complaint.

McMaster went to Cathedral Village, a nonprofit retirement community owned by Presbyterian Senior Living, on April 9 for rehabilitation after a stroke. A nursing assistant found McMaster on the floor of his room late on April 12, with open wounds on his right temple and right shoulder. A second nursing assistant found him dead at 7 a.m. the next day in the facilities front lobby where he was taken to be observed.

Gainey's employer is General Health Care Resources, a medical staffing company in Plymouth Meeting.

In recent years, Cathedral Village's 133-bed nursing home has had an uptick in deficiencies cited by health inspectors during annual inspections in recent years, federal records show. The nursing home had seven deficiencies in its licensing survey in January 2017, up from six in March 2016, zero in January 2015, and one in January 2014.

The nursing home is part of a continuing-care retirement community with 282 apartments. Presbyterian Senior Living acquired the entire 33-acre facility near the Montgomery County line at 600 E Cathedral Rd in June 2015. It opened in 1979 with the support of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.

Nurse charged in death of H. R. McMaster Sr. at Cathedral Village - Philly

[klone, MSN, RN]

Yes, be sure to document, but don't document things that you didn't do. I think that's more the moral of the story.

[NurseBlaq]

Yes! That too. I had a brain fart when I was making the title.

Thanks for clarifying.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

"I falsified that one," Gainey told Cathedral Village's assistant director of nursing, "because I didn't want the next nurse to have to do them," according to the complaint.

I don't even understand what she meant by this. Does she mean that by signing on off a future check, she thought that she was helping the next shift?

Not that this nurse isn't getting what she deserves, but the quote above makes me think that they is a larger issue with the culture of this work place.

[Crush]

"I falsified that one," Gainey told Cathedral Village's assistant director of nursing, "because I didn't want the next nurse to have to do them," according to the complaint.

What in the world? There is something seriously wrong with this. Does this mean she did not want whoever followed her to have to do the neuro checks?

[caliotter3]

Something to "help" someone on the next shift? We're supposed to believe that? Anyone is supposed to believe that?

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

I don't even understand what she meant by this. Does she mean that by signing on off a future check, she thought that she was helping the next shift?

Not that this nurse isn't getting what she deserves, but the quote above makes me think that they is a larger issue with the culture of this work place.

Ugly combination of "being task oriented", "if you didn't chart it, you didn't do it" and total lack of work ethics and responsibility. And, yeah, I agree that the culture in that place smells fishy to high heavens.

Sorry to say that, but I recently was accessing patient's response on pain management and encountered a very similar accident in a SNF. The "rationale" (if one would like to name it like one) was that the med was given 45 min before shift end and the policy was to document responce exactly 1 hour after, minute to minute, and the assessment could not happen right at the time of shift change as everybody would be too busy.