When Safety Is An Afterthought, Smoking Is One Of The Most Dangerous Nursing Home Activities
Smoking remains one of the most ordinary--- yet perhaps the most dangerous activities that takes place in nursing homes everyday. Maybe its due to the fact that smoking is such a commonplace activity in nursing homes, many staff simply fail to understand its potentially dangerous impact on both the individual smoker--- as well as the overall safety of all patients and staff at the facility. The fact remains, hundreds of thousands of nursing home patients smoke cigarettes on a regular basis. As such, nursing homes need to both create and implement a smoking safety policy to minimize the chance of...
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Nursing Home Patient Suffers "Life threatening Injuries" In Smoking Incident
I continually see devastating smoking-related injuries involving nursing home patients who accidentally burn themselves while smoking. While some of these incidents are indeed related to residents' carelessness, many smoking incidents relate back to the fact that the nursing home failed to do their job in providing patients with a safe--- and supervised smoking area. Currently, authorities are investigating a smoking-related injury to a resident and staff member at White Oak Manor Nursing Home (Charlotte, North Carolina). Though the details of the incident remain a bit uncertain at this time, it is believed that a fire ensued after a patient dropped...
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Nursing Home Spotlight: Kenwood Healthcare Center, Chicago, IL
A recently completed nursing home survey completed at Kenwood Care Center in Chicago, IL provides a very disturbing glimpse into life at a facility that cares for a group of predominately mentally-ill patients. One hundred forty-five of the 232 patients at Kenwood had a psychiatric diagnosis and similarly 122 of the facilities patients were receiving rehabilitative services for mental illness and mental retardation. The extensive survey was completed at the facility over several days in January, 2010 resulted in numerous deficiencies and violations of state and federal law. In addition to the noted violations, the IDPH issued a type- A...
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Nursing Home Spotlight: California Gardens Nursing & Rehab Center - Chicago, IL
The failure of California Gardens to properly implement a facility-wide smoking policy resulted in a recent fine of $5,000 and a Type A violation issued by the Illinois Department Of Health. According to a November, 2009 survey report, state officials focused on a 68-year-old patient at the facility who had and extensive history or physical and psychiatric ailments. State officials noticed that the man had multiple burns on his chest that were indicative of him smoking in bed--- a clear violation of the facilities smoking policy. A review of the man's nursing home chart confirmed that he had a...
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Smoking-Related Fires Are A Real Threat To Nursing Home Patients. Is It Time To Put Out The Fire?
It only is a matter of time before another nursing home fire claims the life of another patient. While less publicized, hundreds of elderly people receive burns every year during their admission to skilled nursing facilities. Anyway you look at the situation, fires in nursing homes remain a real-- yet under-appreciated threat to nursing home patient safety. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), from 1994 to 1999 approximately 2,300 nursing homes reported some type of fire at their facility each year. Equally alarming is that the GAO has found the number of severe fire deficiencies in nursing...
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Unsupervised Nursing Home Resident Dies From Burns
A Scottsdale, AZ nursing home resident died after in the burn unit of an area hospital. According to reports, the 89-year-old woman died after she apparently set herself on fire while smoking on a patio. The woman was left unattended while the woman's caretaker was in the kitchen at the facility. When paramedics arrived at the nursing home, they found that the victim was burned when her dress caught on fire. The resident told paramedics that she was outside smoking and tried to burn off a loose thread on her dress with a lighter. Apparently the dress caught fire and...
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