No Training Will Prevent Situations Involving Stupidity From Occurring At Some Nursing Homes
Recognizing that staff may lack training in certain areas essential to patient care, many nursing homes have begun to implement training programs at their facilities to help teach proper protocols-- and hopefully improve patient care. While the training can be quite effective in terms of improving the satisfaction of patients and prevention of medical errors, no amount of training will suffice in order to prevent situations involving harm to patients stemming from a basic lack of common sense or carelessness. I began thinking about how many common errors involving injuries to patients in nursing homes derive not from improper medical...
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Medical Errors, Such As Pressure Ulcers, Costing U.S. $20 Billion Per Year
Putting aside the human toll medical errors impose on individuals, the financial impact of medical errors can be downright daunting. According to a study commissioned by the Society of Actuaries, our country (and economy) is hobbled by a daunting $80 billion in medical errors every year! An estimated 25% of those expenses, $19.5 billion, were determined to be avoidable. In reconciling these figures, the actuaries determined that an estimated 1.5 million measurable and preventable medical errors in 2008 resulted in significant increases in disability, death, lost productivity and increased medical costs. Though preventable medical errors can occur in a number...
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New Medicare Report On Medical Errors In Hospitals Reinforces Ongoing Problems
There's some saying that has been jumbled back-and-forth about how many patients were feeling fine until they went to the hospital and got sick. Well, as corny as the saying may be, a trip to the hospital may be one of that last places you want to go--- particularly when you look at data released from Medicare concerning hospital safety data. After evaluating bills bills that hospitals submitted to Medicare for payment between October, 2008 and June, 2008, CMS, looked through the billing codes used to quantify the type of treatment provided to each patient. The results demonstrate that many...
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Lawyers Provide The Best Protection For Our Seniors Living In Nursing Homes
The American Association for Justice (AAJ) recently published “Standing Up for Seniors: How the Civil Justice System Protects Elderly Americans” which does a tremendous job personalizing many of the common problems facing elderly in nursing homes: Chemical Restraints Forced Arbitration Insurance Denials Neglect Bed Rail Deaths Scams Abuse Medical Errors Unfortunately, as our population ages, more and more people will become reliant on a nursing home system that is geared more towards returning handsome profits to corporate owners than to proving quality medical care. The influx of corporate owners of nursing homes, many of which have no nursing or medical...
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Wait A While & Bad Nurses May Just Migrate To Your State To Care For Your Loved One
Loopholes in a reciprocity program amongst 24 states that allows nurses from one state to transfer to another may be putting a tremendous number of nursing home and hospital patients at risk for receiving poor care-- or perhaps more accurately downright dangerous care. A recent USA Today article "Bad nurses able to keep working in other states" highlights the problems associated with the lack of a national database to keep track of nurses with blemishes on their records. The article chronicles how some nurses legally obtain work in one state when they may have been disciplined for poor care in...
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States Move To More Transparency Regarding Medical Malpractice & Hospital Errors
When a family member is hurt, injured, or sick, you want to know that their hospital has a good reputation with few serious medical errors. You expect doctors and nurses to treat your loved ones with the respect, care, and caution that is owed to them to ensure that they get better, not worse. The frequency and prevalence of medical malpractice and medical errors, especially those medical errors leading to serious injury or even death, are significant factors when choosing a hospital. Illinois has made it easier for patients to know how frequently medical errors occur at hospitals with the Illinois...
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Is It Time For Nursing Homes To Embrace Electronic Medical Records?
In a January 2009 speech, President Obama supported creating electronic health records for all Americans within five years, lowering the cost of health care, making the system more efficient, preventing medical errors, and saving money and jobs. The term “electronic health records” does not refer to any specific system and could refer to sophisticated system that allows doctors to order tests, send prescriptions, and track medical history or a much less sophisticated system. Therefore, one of the first requirements would be establishing standards for what constitutes an electronic health records system. Only 17% of the nation’s 800,000 doctors and 8% of...
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As Congress Debates Health Reform Measures, Some Still Want To Strip Injured People Of Their Legal Rights
This is a great clip showing extreme efforts conservative members of congress will go to promote their big-business agenda. Here you can see Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) constantly getting interrupted by his Republican colleagues chanting 'trial lawyer' as Braley champions patient safety in health care. In his closing arguments, Congressman Braley states: “During this entire health care debate, we've heard a lot from our friends on the other side of the aisle about something called medical liability reform, but all day as they've been talking about this point, you have not heard one word about patient safety.” Good point...
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Bad Nursing Home Records. Scribble, Slop, Scribble.
David Cohen at the Nursing Home Lawyer Blog recently wrote how sloppy medical records have a disastrous impact on patient care--- I couldn't agree more. In nursing home litigation, records play a crucial role in determining who did what, when. As lawyers we must work backward to determine why happened to our clients. Perhaps a better characterization would be that we try to determine what may have happened to our clients. If medical charts are littered with vague notation, absent notation, or perhaps most common--sloppy penmanship--our jobs become difficult. At some points we must fill in the blanks. In many nursing...
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High Staff Turnover Rates Plague Most Nursing Homes
This article from Hutchinson News Online, details the high rate of nursing home staff turnover at most facilities. Most nursing homes have annual staff turnover rates that exceed 100%. The lack of continuity of care is problematic for both the nursing home and residents. For the nursing home it means an exertion of time and money to train and attract new employees. For nursing home residents, high staff likely has a direct impact on the quality of their care. According to a 2006 University of Kansas study on nursing homes, employee turnover is "the most important factor in predicting nursing...
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