Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog

Nursing Home Falls and Injury in Veterans State Homes

April 23, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In a recent blog, our Washington D.C.-based Nursing Home Neglect Attorneys discussed the prevalence of violent elder abuse incidents including nursing home falls occurring in seven veterans homes in the state of Texas, as reported by the Dallas Morning News.

According to the state’s Department of Aging and Disability Services, inspections in the Amarillo veterans home uncovered a series of nursing home neglect incidents and resident falls. In one case an elderly patient with Alzheimer’s was allegedly found on the floor, after the neck of her nightgown got stuck in the bedrails, causing redness around her neck. After an investigation, it was discovered that this patient had been previously assessed and that staff members were supposed to assist the woman get in and out of bed, to prevent nursing home falls and personal injury. The assessment did not order restraints, which are controversial, but sometimes used to prevent falls, a topic that our lawyers discussed a few weeks ago in a blog.

In another nursing home fall incident at the Big Spring home, one of the seven veterans nursing homes has been cited for several violations since 2004, a man who was known to be at risk of falling out of bed was reportedly not carefully monitored and fell twice in the bathroom, experiencing personal injury both times. Another man experienced a fall after his bed rolled—as there was no system established for ensuring that the beds were locked into place. Another resident who needed supervision from nursing home falls and wandering was found on the floor at least four times in a period of less than two months.

In another wandering case in Big Spring Home, where felony charges were filed against two employees last month for nursing home abuse, a resident was found eighty feet from the nursing home building after being left unattended in his wheelchair. He was allegedly found lying on the cement with a swollen face and spent two days in the hospital.

Investigations of Elder Abuse at State Veterans Home

April 21, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

As Maryland Nursing Home Abuse Attorneys, we have been following a recent story from the Dallas Morning News, covering nursing home abuse incidents and allegations surrounding seven veterans nursing homes in Texas that are state-owned.

According to the article, regulators have repeatedly found abuse and neglect problems in the Texas homes, which are open to veterans and their spouses who are Texas residents, and did not receive dishonorable discharge.

One of the homes with nursing home abuse incidents was at the Lamun-Lusk-Sanchez State Home for veterans in Big Springs, where John Harris, a 97-year old World war II veteran lived before he died in 2007. A nurse aide reported that she witnessed a colleague grab the resident from his wheelchair and shove him so aggressively into the bed that he was hospitalized that night complaining of pain in his hip. In another incident from the same year, Albert Teague, a Marine who had once served at Iwo Jima reportedly experienced nursing home violence, when an employee allegedly punched and choked at the home.

The article states the criminal investigation into these two cases was drawn out because of a bureaucratic jumble over who should perform the investigation—home administrators, local police, or state officials. Last month, felony charges were finally filed against the former employees.

Physical Restraints in Maryland Nursing Homes

April 15, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In yesterday’s blog post, our lawyers from Lebowitz and Mzhen Personal Injury Lawyers, discussed the resent release of the annual state-by-state check-up of healthcare ratings, in the National Healthcare Quality Report from 2009, which includes Maryland’s ratings on nursing home care, and the use of physical restraint.

Nursing home restraint is a physical or pharmacologic restraint used to keep a resident or patient from moving freely, and is only allowed when medically necessary, as it can also cause patients to become weak or develop other health complications like pressure sores, isolation, loss of walking ability, incontinence, or injury from trying to escape the restraints, leading to possible injury or wrongful death.

Restraints have been used in nursing homes when impaired residents with mental conditions are prone to nursing home falls, wandering, or the potential for personal injury—but are controversial as they have been also been used for the purposes of discipline, or for the convenience of the nursing home—leading to nursing home abuse and neglect.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that the use of physical and chemical restraints has reduced substantially after the implementation the CMS restraint regulation in 1990, showing that physical restraints had serious negative effects including the risk of wrongful death, and nursing home abuse and neglect.

Maryland Nursing Homes Rated in National Healthcare Quality Report

April 14, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In recent Maryland Nursing Home News, the state has received the results of the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report, first ordered by Congress in 2003, to monitor the quality of healthcare, including nursing homes across the country.

The report is published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and according to the study, the overall the quality of Maryland’s health care rates between weak and average.

According to the Ethan Moore, the Health Policy Director of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland, Maryland nursing homes reportedly provided “expert care” in the 2009 study, but the critical issue Moore expects to arise in Maryland’s future is providing the projected explosion of the 65-year and older adult residents with proper Maryland nursing home healthcare and safety in the next twenty years.

Moore stated that Maryland has neither the budget nor capacity to take care of this future increase of seniors in nursing homes—but hopes that the state can find a solution to provide residents with quality care nursing homes and communities that are free from nursing home abuse and neglect in the future.

NY Nursing Home Hidden Cameras Capture Neglect—22 Health Care Workers Arrested

April 1, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In recent news that Maryland Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Attorneys have been following, Attorney General for the State of New York Andrew Cuomo announced this week that twenty-two health care employees, both former and current, have been arrested after hidden camera footage in two separate nursing homes revealed alleged abuse and neglect as well as other behavior that harmed the health and safety of residents.

Cuomo claimed that his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) is using hidden surveillance cameras in nursing homes all over the state of New York, with the consent of family members, to make sure that residents are receiving the nursing home care that they lawfully deserve. Cuomo and his team are reportedly setting a precedent in this country, for using surveillance cameras to investigate the possible nursing home abuse and neglect of patients in nursing homes. The MFCU has, to date, convicted 30 nursing home workers based on the results of the hidden cameras.

The first case announced this week involved the arrest of 14 health care workers at Northwoods Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility, after six weeks of footage revealed that the workers failed to consistently turn residents who were immobile, neglected to check or care for bedsores, routinely failed to give patients necessary medications, or check residents for incontinence and change residents’ undergarments in a timely manner. The medical records were also allegedly falsified to reflect a level of care that was not being administered.

The second case involving incidents at Williamsville Suburban Nursing Home, lead to the arrest of 8 workers. The investigation took place over a seven-week period of time, and revealed that staff failed to use a mechanical lift assisted by two other caregivers to properly transfer residents to and from the bed—causing a great potential for nursing home falls and injury. The footage also showed that patients weren’t given insulin, weren’t treated for wounds on the skin, and weren’t checked for vital signs, or given range of motion exercises. The resident’s medical records were also falsified to conceal neglect.

Washington D.C. Socialite Sues Round-the-Clock Nurse for Negligence

March 30, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Our Washington, D.C. Nursing Home Lawyers have been following a recent article from the Washington Post that was published last week, where Karen Feld, the 61-year old Washington D.C. socialite and former gossip columnist, has filed a nursing home negligence and fraud lawsuit against her former home-care giver, for nearly $1.5 million.

According to the Post, Feld hired Inger Sheinbaum, a 61-year old Austrian to be her private nurse and home-care companion to provide 24-hour care after she recovered from brain surgery in January 2008.

In the Washington D.C. nursing home negligence and fraud lawsuit, Feld alleges that Sheinbaum was not accurate about her qualifications as a registered nurse in Washington, D.C. She accuses Sheinbaum of allowing men to enter and exit Feld’s room in the hospital, which reportedly lead to great fear for Feld as she recovered from her post-traumatic stress disorder. Sheinbaum is also being accused of leaving Feld alone at critical junctures during her role as a home-care provider.

Sheinbaum, who only worked for Feld for a week, resigned after Feld allegedly attacked her while shouting obscenities in a rant. Feld claims the rant was a result of her seizures. Sheinbaum’s attorney claims that the lawsuit has no merit.

F.D.A. Bed Rail Safety Guidelines for Maryland Nursing Homes

March 24, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In a recent blog, our Maryland Accident Attorneys discussed the topic of whether bed rails in Maryland nursing homes are a potential health hazard, or whether they protect the health and safety of residents.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), nearly 2.5 million nursing home and hospital beds are currently used in this country. In an F.D.A. study, from 1985 to 2008, there have reportedly been 772 incidents where hospital and nursing home patients have been trapped, stuck, or strangled in beds that had rails. Out of this number, 176 were saved by the staff before experiencing injury, 136 experienced personal injuries that were nonfatal, and 460 patients died.

Bedrails are designed to aid in helping patients pull themselves up, turn into a different positions in the bed, provide a feeling of security, and keep patients who are frail, or who have been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s safe from harm, such as falling, or rolling out of bed.

Unfortunately these very patients often get trapped or stuck in the space between the mattress and the bedrails, causing personal injury, strangulation, suffocating, and wrongful death, which can result in a Maryland personal injury lawsuit. Bedrail injuries can often result in nursing home falls, when a patient attempts to climb over the rails, bruising or scrapes to the skin, as well as a feeling of restriction, and agitated behavior from being restrained.

J&J Promoted Risperdal for Nursing Home Residents After FDA Warning

March 18, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In a recent blog, our Baltimore, Maryland Nursing Home Attorneys discussed the complaint by the U.S. Justice Department against Johnson & Johnson (J&J), for paying illegal kickback payments in the millions to the massive drug pharmacy Omnicare, to increase sales of antipsychotic prescriptions drugs like Risperdal for nursing home patients suffering from dementia.

According to an article published last week on Bloomberg.com, J&J reportedly planned to reach the goal of selling over $3 million in sales of Risperdal to geriatric patients just a few months after they were told by federal regulators that the drug was falsely claimed by the company to be an effective and safe treatment for elderly patients and residents of nursing homes.

The article claims that J&J was told in 1999 by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the materials the company was using to market to elderly patients did not properly reflect Risperdal’s health benefits and risks—and could affect the health and safety of elderly nursing home patients. According to new unsealed documents revealed in a Louisiana State lawsuit, the business plan for J&J for the following year planned for an increase in the market share of the drugs to for dementia patient sales, with unapproved use.

Officials in Louisiana claim in the lawsuit that J&J negligently marketed the drug Risperdal to vulnerable elderly patients for uses that were unapproved. The lawsuit accuses J&J of the “off-label” marketing of Risperdal, and is seeking millions of dollars in monetary reimbursement of the public funds that were spend on the drug. Ten states have sued J&J over the negligent marketing and sales practices of Risperdal.

Landmark Settlement Moves Mentally Ill Residents Out of Nursing Homes

March 15, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In a previous blog, our Hartford, Maryland Nursing Home Attorneys discussed the ongoing and serious issue many nursing homes are facing today—how to keep elderly residents who share facilities with younger mentally ill patients and criminals, safe from nursing home abuse and violence.

The Chicago Tribune reported today after an historic Illinois court settlement, that thousands of mentally ill patients are likely to move out of nursing homes over the next five years and into settings that are more community-based, due to a new legal agreement that has been created to rework the long-term health care system in Illinois.

According to the Chicago Tribune, more than any other state, Illinois uses nursing home facilities to house younger mentally ill adults, and this includes thousands of residents with felony records. The Tribune spearheaded a massive investigation recently, reporting a long list of nursing home violence, sexual assault, substandard care, and drug abuse in nursing home facilities, where psychiatric patients weren’t adequately supervised or monitored to maintain their safety as well as the health and safety of the elderly residents of the nursing home, to prevent resident injury or harm.

The agreement reportedly plans for state officials to offer around 4,500 nursing home residents who are mentally ill a choice between staying in the 24 large facilities that are known as IMDs, or “institutions for mental diseases,” or to move into smaller environments that are better suited for their disabilities and reportedly less expensive. The settlement reportedly only covers residents of the IMDs, which will still leave nearly 10,000 mentally ill residents living in nursing home facilities without the IMD classification among elderly and disabled residents.

Medication Mistake Leads to Wrongful Death in Nursing Home

March 9, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

As Washington D.C. area nursing home negligence and abuse attorneys, we have been following the recent news of the an 82-year old patient who experienced a wrongful death after receiving another patient’s medication while staying at the Fair Oaks Lodge, a nursing facility in Minnesota.

According to ABC News, an employee at the home negligently gave the patient, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, another resident’s medicine on June 1, 2009. The medication mistake caused the patient’s blood pressure to seriously drop, and after being rushed to the hospital, the woman died six days later while in intensive care.

The article claims that this same medical mistake has happened at the facility twice before, with two different patients, from May 27 to June 23, 2009. The two residents reportedly survived, but the nursing home was held responsible by the state for nursing home neglect, and their procedures were audited.

As a result of the nursing home negligence, the employee who made the medical mistake was reportedly reprimanded and re-trained, but no longer works at the nursing home.