Today I was reading a document I obtained from the Virginia Department of Health about a local nursing home.
It was the Health Department’s most recent surveys on a facility, where they annually come in and make sure a nursing home and its staff are following the law.
The survey found some very upsetting things were going on in the local nursing home:
1. Nurses were documenting in the patients chart that they had performed certain care, when they hadn’t;
2. Nurses were cleaning pressure ulcers (think bed sore) then putting the old dirty bandage back on OR documenting they cleaned the wound and didn’t;
3. Nurses were failing to notify the doctors when they were out of medications;
4. Nurses were failing to notify the doctor when patients had lost significant weight;
5. Nurses were failing to notify doctors when patients got sick, fast!
Now I don’t think for 1 minute that these men and women MEANT to harm their patients?
No.
I think they were overworked and didn’t have enough time in the day to actually provide the patient care they were required to do - so they instead couldn’t provide the care, and wrote down that they did.
These weren’t simply allegations of abuse and neglect, these were the findings of the State licensing authority.
And what do we, the citizens of Virginia, think about this?
- Are you ok with your loved one not receiving the care Medicare is paying for?
- Are you ok with nurses having to lie about the care they provide?
- Do you think it is ok for doctors to write orders that don’t get carried out?
Neither do I.
But most residents and their families do not know what is going on.
If you want to know what is going on in your loved one’s nursing home – ASK THEM to review the last inspection from the Department of Health (they keep copies, I promise!) or file your own Freedom of Information Act Request to learn more. Richmond will charge you a copying fee, but it may be worth it to know what is really going on at Mom’s nursing home.
To request the inspection information, write to the address below, and let them know the dates of inspection and name and location of the Nursing Home in Virginia.
Knowledge is power. The more you know, the better care your loved on can receive.
Write to:
Virginia Pierce
Center for Quality Healthcare
9960 Maryland Drive
Richmond,VA 23233-1456
The Virginia State Bar has approved “cloud storage,” i.e. third-party data centers, to store client documents, according to a recent ethics opinion.
That’s welcome news for nursing home lawyers. Nursing home charts are voluminous (2,000 pages or more). The records are sorted by category – admission, assessment, nurse notes – and sent to experts to review. Each time the chart is copied, it adds up to one thing: a lot of paper.
Here’s a quick summary of LEO 1872 and what cloud storage means for law firms.
Assisted living facilities (ALF) are are housing facilities for people with moderate disabilities. These facilities provide supervision or assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs); coordination of services by outside health care providers; and monitoring of resident activities to help to ensure their health, safety, and well-being. Assistance may include the administration or supervision of medication, or personal care services provided by a staff person.
A nursing home, on the other hand, is a place of residence for people who require continual nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living. Nursing aides and skilled nurses are usually available 24 hours a day. Residents include the elderly and younger adults with physical or mental disabilities. Residents in a skilled nursing facility may also receive physical, occupational, and other rehabilitative therapies following an accident or illness. Some nursing homes assist people with special needs, such as Alzheimer patients.
If a loved one suffers from an illness, should they be in an assisted living facility? Or a nursing home?
Topic: Nursing Home Contracts
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Topic: Nursing Home Falls
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