Earlier this month, Minnesota state health investigators indicated that an 82-year-old woman’s death was caused by a nursing home medication error and at least two others were injured by a facility that confused the drugs it gave to residents on several occasions. Unfortunately, this story is not a unique situation… Read more.
While tort reform advocates argue that medical malpractice lawsuits are the cause of rising medical costs in the United States and push for further limits on the ability of consumers to pursue legal action for preventable mistakes, the total cost of medical malpractice litigation is only 0.6% of the nation’s… Read more.
New guidance issued by Medicare calls for nursing homes to change the way they operate, and make elderly care facilities less like hospitals and more like a warm, comforting, home environment. Improving nursing home quality of life for residents will help maintain the dignity people deserve in their final years,… Read more.
Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, designed to bring attention to issues of elder neglect, abuse and exploitation. Falling on June 15 each year, the International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA) uses this day to encourage increasing public knowledge of elderly abuse and educating the public in… Read more.
Although the nursing home industry was pushing for a cap on damages in Tennessee nursing home neglect lawsuits, the state legislator failed to pass the proposed bill out of a House subcommittee this week. If the bill had been passed and ultimately enacted as law, it would have been a… Read more.
When a nursing home resident is injured due to the negligence of a facility or their staff, a nursing home lawsuit not only helps the family secure compensation, but also acts as an important safeguard to encourage the industry to provide the proper standard of care. However, a new rule… Read more.
According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 11% of nursing home residents suffered from pressure ulcers in 2004. These painful and potentially life-threatening sores remain a serious problem at facilities throughout the country, and in many cases nursing home pressure sores can… Read more.
According to a report in USA Today, the number of facilities which use nursing home restraints has dropped from 21.1% in 1991 to only 5.5% in 2007. This decline demonstrates the growing recognition that the use of physical restraints can diminish the quality of life for the elderly and ill,… Read more.
Last week, the federal government released a new nursing home rating system which assigns an overall score to every facility inspected by Medicare and assigns one to five stars for staffing, quality and health inspections. While the nursing home industry has raised concerns about the public posting of these ratings,… Read more.
According to a new government report, the occurrence of bedsores in hospitals has increased nearly 80% since 1993. These serious open wounds were mainly found among elderly patients, and can have a devastating impact on their overall health and quality of life. The medical malpractice lawyers at Saiontz & Kirk,… Read more.
