An incident at a Chapel Hill nursing home is being investigated after several patients mysteriously tested positive for opiates, officials said Wednesday.
The Britthaven of Chapel Hill nursing home, which has a spotty record of patient care, notified state and local authorities after a female patient's blood tests showed the presence of opiates, though she had not been prescribed the narcotic.
That patient, whose name was not released, died of an unrelated bout of pneumonia, said Phillip Hill, vice president of operations for Britt haven, Inc.
But when that patient's blood results came back positive for opiates, nursing home staff grew alarmed. Theynoted that other patients in the home's 29-bed Alzheimer's unit showed signs of lethargy and were also tested. Hill said opiates were found in several of the patients, and two were admitted at UNC Hospitals.
Britthaven notified the Chapel Hill Police Department and the state Department of Health and Human Services.
"Obviously, if somebody wasn't on the medication that showed up in the bloodstream, you want to know how it got there," said Jeff Horton, head of the Division of Health Service Regulation.
Hill said no drugs were out of order or missing at the nursing home. He said the police found no evidence of a crime, but the company is continuing its investigation.
"It's real hard to determine what caused a patient to have a positive drug screen," Hill said. "Many types of antibiotics can give a false positive for opiates."
In the meantime, he said, the regular staff of the nursing home's Alzheimer's unit has been temporarily replaced. He said the crew will be suspended until the probe is complete.
"We are reassuring family members that we have a completely new team on this," Hill said, adding that security has also been ramped up. "Residents are safe."
Prior to the current incident, the 133-bed nursing home had been designated a "special focus facility" because of persistently poor care. As a result, Horton said, the facility gets two inspections a year instead of one.
During inspections in 2008 and 2009, the nursing home was found to have subjected some residents to imminent jeopardy by failing to protect them from abuse. In November, Britthaven paid a federal fine of $7,117.54 for failing to provide enough supervision to prevent accidents.
"It dealt with having safe water temperatures in their patient areas," said Beverly Speroff, with the Division of Health Service Regulation.
Speroff said Wednesday that state inspectors have not yet visited Britthaven. Typically, state inspectors, who work on behalf of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, collect information on possible violations by observing the nursing home, conducting staff and family interviews, and reviewing medication records.
