Maryland Health Department office chief resigns

The head of the Maryland Department of Health’s office responsible for inspecting nursing homes and investigating complaints will leave her position next week, the Department of Health announced in a news release Thursday.

Dr. Tricia Nay, who joined the Office of Healthcare Quality in 2008 and has served as its executive director since 2014, will resign effective June 27, the department said. The search for his replacement, a national process, is expected to take several months.

His resignation comes a month after five nursing home residents with reduced mobility and complex health needs filed a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Health, accusing it of failing in its duty to regularly inspect the state nursing homes and allowing dangerously poor quality care to be provided. not detected.

According to the lawsuit, while the state health department is required to conduct annual inspections of its 225 licensed nursing facilities that care for people on Medicaid or Medicare, more than 100 facilities have gone four years without inspection. The lawsuit also accused the state of allowing a backlog of uninvestigated complaints from nursing home residents to grow, forcing some residents to wait months or even years for the department to review complaints that they had been harmed by abuse or neglect.

Chase Cook, a Department of Health spokesman, declined to say whether Nay’s resignation was related to the lawsuit.

While the state searches for a replacement for Nay, Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman, assistant secretary for public health services, will serve as Nay’s replacement in the interim.

“We are committed to finding a highly qualified health care quality expert to lead this critical office,” Maryland Secretary of Health Dr. Laura Herrera Scott said in the release. “Marylanders expect our regulated health care providers to provide high-quality care to our patients, especially those who are most vulnerable.”

In the press release, the Department of Health said the Office of Healthcare Quality’s critical roles – such as nursing home investigations, health care licensure and investigations on complaints — would continue while he searched for Nay’s replacement. Health department leaders are “actively analyzing” ways to improve processes within the office, the release said.

“There is much work to be done within the Office of Healthcare Quality,” Kalyanaraman said in the release. “Since the pandemic, health departments across the country have struggled due to staffing issues and other challenges. The department will hire leaders who build trust and maintain Maryland’s high standards for quality care.