Healthcare Inspection - Emergency Care, Patient Discharges, and Staffing Issues Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System, Tuskegee, Alabama

We did not substantiate that closure of the emergency care unit at the Tuskegee facility adversely affected patient care, that a patient was discharged from the Nursing Home Care Unit (NHCU) because he made a complaint, or that patients were discharged prematurely from the NHCU. We could not confirm or refute that the ambulance service was not always available to transport patients. We determined that managers took appropriate steps to address nursing staff shortages in the NHCU. We confirmed delays in patient care related to two resuscitation events and while facility managers had taken action to improve their resuscitation process, not all corrective actions had been implemented. We recommended that managers monitor and track corrective actions to completion.