Holy Family Villa Slapped With $25,000 Fine By State

PALOS PARK, IL -- A Palos Park nursing home was fined heavily after state officials found that the facility failed to failure to follow its falls policy and have appropriate interventions in place. Holy Family Villa was fined $25,000 by the Illinois Department of Public Health following two complaint investigations in October 2018. The violations were reported in the IDPH’s Fourth Quarterly Report of Nursing Home Violators.

Holy Family Villa is a 129-bed facility located at 12220 S. Will-Cook Road, Palos Park, which provides 24/7 skilled nursing care and rehabilitation. The nursing home is administered by Catholic Charities. On Oct. 5, 2018, IDPH cited the facility with six licensure deficiencies in violation of the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act.

The state’s findings came as the result of an investigation into a complaint of a 91-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who had fallen three times the previous July. The most serious of the falls happened on July 22, 2018. According to the report, the woman had called for help and was found on a floor mat next to the bed bleeding from a head wound. Holy Family Villa was fined $2,000 and issued a “Type B” violation, which required the nursing care facility to provide a correction plan to the state’s public health department.

A second investigation dated Oct. 23, 2018, found Holy Family Villa to have four licensure deficiencies. The IDPH report determined that the nursing care facility had failed to follow its “Falls Policy” and did not have “appropriate interventions in place for 3 or 4 residents.” The report documents three examples of residents who had fallen while in Holy Family Villa’s care.

On Aug. 23, 2018, a resident was found crawling on the floor out of the room early in the morning after having apparently gotten out of bed to use the bathroom. The resident had a big bump on the head. A doctor ordered that the resident be admitted to the hospital. An investigation was initiated and IDPH notified. Hospital documents indicated that a CT scan revealed a subdural hematoma “that had the possibility of being even closer to the brain” than originally thought. According to the state’s report, the resident was not interested in surgery and was taken home by family on hospice care. The resident passed away on Sept. 7, 2018. The death certificate noted that resident’s cause of death was “due to complication of a subdural hematoma and a fall.” Further, a risk assessment dated Aug. 4, 2018 documented that the resident was a “high fall risk.”

In two more examples, another nursing home resident suffered a hip fracture in four places, and a third was treated for a cut on the head. Both injuries resulted from falls, the report said. The nursing care facility was also cited for negligence, when the resident with the hip fracture waited eight hours before radiology was ordered. Holy Family Villa was cited with an "A" violation, indicated a "substantial probability that death or serious mental or physical harm will result, or has resulted."

The IDPH fined Holy Family Villa $25,000. The fine was doubled due to the facilty’s “high risk designation.”

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