Practice Areas

• Birth Injury
• Delay in Cancer Diagnosis
• Nursing Home Negligence
• Undiagnosed Infections
• Heart Attacks Misdiagnosed

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Nursing Home Negligence

• Using Antipsychotics to Pacify Nursing Home Residents: How Much is Too Much?
• Nursing Home Resident Dies Because Staff Not Trained in Heimlich! Jury Awards $2.35 Million
• NY Nursing Homes Rank Among the Worst for Support and Family Caregivers!
• Are You More Likely To Develop Bed Sores Because Of The Color Of Your Skin? Click Here To Find Out!
• New Study reveals Antipsychotic Drugs Hazardous to the Elderly in Nursing Homes

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Nursing Home Negligence

• Pressure sores occur far more often in African-Americans than any other racial or ethnic group in nursing homes in Kingston, New York
• Top 3 steps you can take to avoid pressure sores in a nursing home or hospital in Kingston, New York
• Beware of the dangers of bed rails in your Kingston, New York nursing home
• What you can do to prevent your loved one from having an unintended weight loss in a nursing home
• What you need to know today to protect the rights of your family member in a nursing home in Kingston, New York

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How you can tell a good nursing home from a bad one.

In 2001, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid reported to Congress that 91% of nursing homes in the United States did not have sufficient staff to prevent harm to residents. Therein lies the problem with many nursing homes: UNDERSTAFFING!

The smaller the underpaid and non-skilled staff is, the more money that can be made by nursing homes. There are strong financial incentives for nursing homes to cut corners not only in the number of staff, but also in the training and qualifications of the skilled staff. Most of the revenue of nursing homes comes from Medicare and Medicaid, but the owners of nursing homes need not account to Medicare or Medicaid for how they spend the money they are paid. As a result, the number of lower paid, less trained nursing assistants have increased.

The ratio of aides/nurses to residents may be one aid for fifteen residents during the night and it is not unusual to find a lone nurse or aid caring for as many as thirty residents. The low staffing will result in poor quality of care, such as malnutrition of residents, bedsores, urinary tract infections, residents confined to their chairs or beds, and neglect.

The New York State Department of Health measures performance rankings of all nursing homes in New York at the Department of Health's Nursing Home Profile at www.nursinghomes.nyhealth.gov/nh-quality. For each quality measure, the nursing homes in New York are divided into five groups according to their scores, with roughly 20% of the nursing homes in each group.

The quality measure performance rankings show how nursing homes rank in relation to other nursing homes in New York. There are performance rankings for the percentage of residents with urinary tract infections, the percentage of residents who were physically restrained, the percentage of residents who have pressure sores, ther percentage of residents who lose too much weight, and the percentage of residents who have a catheter inserted and left in their bladder. The performance ranking for the percentage of residents with urinary tract infection is a good indicator of the sanitary practices of the nursing home.

Medicare also provides performance ranking measures of nursing homes at its webpage, www.Medicare.gov.NHCompare. At this website, Medicare lists specific information for nursing homes throughout the United States concerning nursing home staffing, quality measures, and health inspections, and you can compare up to three nursing homes in each category.,

FAQ

Nursing Home Negligence

• What is the difference between a Stage 1 pressure sore and a Stage 4 pressure sore?
• What data is available to you in your search for the best nursing home for your family member?
• Who do you turn to for answers at a nursing home?

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