A federal program intended to help transition nursing home residents who receive Medicaid into community- and home-based care has had some success in Maryland, but people in many states have experienced difficulties with relocation. The Money Follows the Person (MFP) program, initiated in early 2008, is intended to help individuals…
A nursing home in Hyattsville, Maryland has been under investigation by state health officials for more than a year following multiple allegations of neglect, including at least one death. The number of complaints and cited deficiencies led the state to put the nursing home on a national register of nursing…
A woman’s estate filed suit against the nursing home where she lived until the end of her life, alleging that a medication error by nursing home staff caused severe health complications leading up to her death. A jury found the nursing home liable in Freudeman v. Landing of Canton and…
A recent review of norovirus outbreaks in nursing homes found a correlation between outbreaks and higher rates of both hospitalizations and mortality among residents. While the correlation does not necessarily mean that the norovirus directly causes a greater number of hospitalizations or deaths, the data obtained by the study could…
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), generally defined as bacterial, viral, or fungal infections contracted by patients while receiving medical treatment, are a potentially major hazard for residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities (LTCFs). As many as 2.8 million LTCF patients may contract HAIs, some of them fatal, every year.…
A nurse’s aide at a Virginia veterans’ nursing home received a five-year prison sentence in September 2012 for a scheme that involved stealing residents’ wedding rings and selling them. She pleaded guilty to receiving and selling stolen property in July. She allegedly had a partner who actually stole the rings,…
People involved in legal disputes may choose, instead of litigation, to submit their case to a process like mediation, where a neutral person tries to help all sides in a dispute reach a mutually agreeable settlement; or arbitration, where one or more neutral individuals hear arguments from all sides to…
A woman may replead her lawsuit against a Tennessee nursing home for the death of her mother as an ordinary negligence claim, according to a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Southwell v. Summit View of Farragut. She filed suit claiming medical malpractice and violations of the…
A federal judge in the District of Maryland allowed one claim in a pro se lawsuit lawsuit against a hospital and a nursing home to proceed past summary judgment. The court in Estate of Bernice L. Jones v. NMS Health Care of Hyattsville, et al granted the defendants’ motion for…
A Baltimore nursing home announced that it will shut its doors by the end of September 2012. The nursing home’s parent company, Ravenwood Healthcare, Inc. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. The facility lost its Medicare and Medicaid funding, and Ravenwood has been unsuccessful in locating…