Three Years And $23 Million Later, Jury Finds Home Care Nurse & Agency Responsible For Neglect Of Patient
A home care-nurse and health care agency in Pennsylvania were found guilty of providing negligent care to a 55-year-old woman who required medical care for her Crohn's disease. The medical malpractice lawsuit was premised upon the nurse's failure to report a catheter-related infection to the woman's doctor. The infection progressed throughout the woman's body to the point that she required extensive hospital care and amputation of both legs. The record verdict of $23.12 million intended to compensate the patient for past and future medical care, lost earning and and pain and suffering. Increased popularity of home health care Perhaps as...
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Federal Court Decision Opens The Door For Expanded Medicare Coverage For Skilled Nursing Care & Home Health Care
Recent decisions by Federal Courts in Pennsylvania and Vermont may pave the way to extended Medicare benefits to individuals with chronic medical conditions. If the decisions are upheld, no longer will a Medicare recipient be required to demonstrate that their condition will improve in order for the treatment to be covered under Medicare. These decisions may help clarify the type of benefits a large number of Medicare recipients are entitled to who suffer from progressive conditions that are difficult categorize. Both cases have effectively invalidated the standards utilized by the Obama administration for determining if Medicare will cover care related...
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Convicted Sex Offender Pulls From His Old Bag Of Tricks While Assaulting Elderly Nursing Home Patient
Another convicted sex offender has acted out in a nursing home setting by assaulting another patient at the facility where he resides. This incident reportedly occurred at Golden Living Center in Oakmont, PA. Staff at the nursing home noticed Russell Gary Dettlinger fondling a female dementia patient at the facility in a common area used for watching television. Mr. Dettlinger was immediately removed from the facility and charged with aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault. This is not a random act for Mr. Dettlinger as he was convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1993. Despite the wrinkles...
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Wheelchair-Bound Nursing Home Patients Must Be Properly Supervised To Avoid Injury
Allowing a nursing home patient to sit comfortably in their wheelchair in a hall or perhaps in an outdoor area of the facility seems like a pretty innocent act-- right? I mean aren't patients in wheelchairs entitled to a little fresh air or just hang out in an common area with other patients? Despite the seemingly harmless act of sitting in a wheelchair, nursing home employees need to take steps to ensure the safety of these handicapped residents-- even if they appear to be sitting idly. Too often nursing home employees take for granted that wheelchair patients' limited mobility puts...
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Forgetful Assisted Living Staff Allows Autistic Patient To Bake In Hot Van
A shameful story regarding a Pennsylvania assisted living facility / group home recently made headlines after staff left an autistic man in a hot van for five hours following a field trip sponsored by the facility. Apparently the man was chaperoned to a local amusement park with staff from the Woods Services. When the group returned to the facility, one of the staff members escorted some of the other residents back to the living quarters while the other staff member parked the van. The staff member who parked the van forgot that the autistic man remained in the back seat....
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Less Patients, Happier Staff, Healthier Patients. Research Shows Less May Acutally Be More When It Comes To Patient Loads For Nurses
Without proper staffing, even the most modern nursing homes are nothing more than buildings with beds. Knowledgeable and plentiful staff has always appeared to improve patient morale, but a new study determines that added staff may actually save lives. The Journal of Health Services Research compared the outcomes from 1.1 million people who had general surgical procedures performed at more than 800 hospitals in California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the three states, patients in California fared the best. It's not just the warm weather in California that improved the heath of surgical patients. Turns out, the patients in California...
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Assisted Living Employee Pleads Guilty To Manslaughter Charges After Resident Dies From Burn Injury
Alvador Thompson, a nurses aide who poured scalding oatmeal into the mouth of a disabled patient has pleaded guilty in response to the involuntary manslaughter charges filed against her by the Montgomery County District Attorney. This incident at an assisted living facility caught national attention not only due to the fact that an aide failed to check the temperature of the food she was serving to a disabled resident, but also due to the fact that despite the severe burns on the man's lips, tongue, mouth and throat, the facility waited almost half a day to get medical attention...
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Criminal Charges Filed Against Assisted Living Employee In Relation To Resident Suffering Burns While Eating
As an injury lawyer who frequently handles nursing home negligence matters, I find myself regularly thinking 'what happened to plain old common sense'? I mean, you can train the nurses, physicians, maintenance workers and administrators til' you're blue in the face-- yet most of the commonly encountered nursing home problems could easily be avoided with plain old common sense. Want an example? How does checking on the temperature of food before feeding a disabled person? Is that too much to ask? Along those lines, homicide charges were filed against Alador Thompson, an employee of Cambridge-Brightfield Assisted Living Facility in...
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Hospital Cited For Multiple Safety Violations During Investigation Of Resident Death
The failure of a Pennsylvania hospital to take basic steps to protect its patients may have cost a dementia patient her life. 89-year-old Rose Lee Diggs was admitted to UPMC Montefiore for multiple deficiencies during the investigation of her death. Although Diggs was transferred from a nursing home that warned the hospital of her propensity to wander, staff at the hospital failed to take any preventative measures to assure Diggs safety in their facility. Five days after Diggs admission to UPMC she was found dead on the hospital roof in her hospital gown and slippers in 20-degree temperatures. The Pennsylvania...
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