Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Stark & Stark Law Firm : Elder Care, Senior Care

I recently met with the daughter of an 80-year-old woman who was left alone in blistering heat without water and wearing a fleece coat. It is uncertain how long the woman had been left unattended but it was long enough to make her pass out and suffer from severe dehydration. The facility at which this took place is a well regarded, pleasant looking facility. It charges residents $6,000 a month. The daughter, who visited her mother regularly, was shocked. She thought that type of thing only happened at the less well-to-do facilities. Sadly, she was wrong.

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The fourth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study was released recently, and contains very insightful information for patients and their families when choosing a hospital. Safety in hospitals has recently become an overwhelming concern due to the rise of injuries suffered to patients during their hospital stays.

Often times this process can be quite daunting and somewhat confusing if you are not familiar with the all of the available resources provided to assist you. The study provides patient safety incident rates and associated mortality among Medicare beneficiaries, gives an overall patient safety indicator hospital performance assessment, and provides a list of the best-performing hospitals for overall patient safety across the country.

You can read the full April 2007 report here.

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Assisted Living Facilities and Nursing Homes cannot offer the same level of care. Assisted Living Facilities do not offer specialty care. They have fewer nurses, fewer CNAs, and less overall oversight of the individual resident. Thus, Assisted Living Facilities generally have residents who are more independent. However, due to desire to fill beds and generate more revenue, Assisted Living administrators sometimes take residents they cannot necessarily care for. Such is the case with a matter our firm is currently handling. In this particular case, the resident was brought into an Assisted Living Facility even though there was documentation that showing the resident had fallen thirty seven times at a previous nursing home. This resident was clearly a high risk for falls. Assisted Living Facilities are simply not equipped to provide the kind of care that this individual needed. Consequently, within three days after being admitted to the Assisted Living Facility, this resident fell and severely fractured her wrist.

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Prevention is the key when dealing with bedsores, pressure ulcers and decubitus ulcers. Repositioning is crucial to staving off the development and/or further deterioration of decubitus ulcers (a.k.a. “bedsores”). This entails the simple act of shifting the residences body to alleviate pressure on certain parts of the body in order to avoid skin breakdown. Federal and state regulations for nursing homes require residence at risk of developing decubitus ulcers, and those who already have the ulcers, be turned at least every two hours. Due to staff shortages and/or staff incompetence repositioning often does not occur within the two hour time period. The consequences of this failure can be horrific. A small ulcer resembling a minor abrasion can quickly deteriorated into a very painful gaping wound that requires surgery.

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